Mangahao Upper No. 1 Reservoir 02/07/2010

This tramp is all about checking out a hut I have never been too and of course another of those "track not maintained" things. Its a tramp shared with a couple of somebodies; there's somebody and somebody else.  Somebody speaks with a bit of an accent and somebody else is an artist. And me, I went too.

Aims

• Religious propaganda free Tararua's.
• Friday - Drive to end of Mangahao Road and park at the Upper No. 1; walk to the hut in the dark; sample some whisky and sleep.
• Saturday - Do the Triangle Spur route to Dundas then across to Arete and down to Te Matawai for the night.
• Sunday - Walk out over Girdlestone saddle and drive back to Wellington.

The Single Malt Whisky
For this trip it was a repeat of the delicious powerful Caol Ila from Adelphi.

Friday 02/07/2010
Left Wellington around 1400 and drove North. Parked at the dam and somebody else took off in a great rush while somebody stared at the camera.

As we walked to the Mangahoa Flats hut it got dark. Somebody got lost. Somebody else got to the hut after me.

At the hut we had whisky and we had beer and we got re united with somebody who got lost. Not a serious lost they will have you know, just one of those tempory lostnesses that are very quickly cured with some application of electronic gadgetery in the form of a gee pee ess.  

Saturday 03/07/2010
This is the day the aims fail. Out of bed late with a normal damp mid winter Tararua day. Headed up the valley and walked past "track not maintained" as it wasn't so obvious except for the paint on the tree, so we realised our error at the next flat spot and turned around and headed back Somebody and somebody else decided that they didn't want to head up Triangle spur and over Dundas to Arete and down to Te Matawai for the night. They went back to the hut for some r & r.

Oh well different energy levels. I headed up the spur and thru the regrowth where the old track was hard to find pink taped a trail to make it easy next time I'm there. Got to here or somewhere about here a bit of a dogleg with an easier track.

Then back to Mangahao Flats hut to be with somebody and somebody else and drink the rest of our whisky and keep ourselves warm with fire.

Sunday 04/07/2010

We swept and we cleaned as that hut wasnt so tidy when we arrived. Headed out to a very fine day and took pictures of some nice orange lichen stuff living on the rocks. Persuaded somebody else to NOT build a cairn of those perfectly happy orange lichen stuffs living on rocks.

Down the Mangahoa river back to the car and a slow drive back to Wellington.

At least there was one nice LBM on the way out:

And the dead standing trees, man at his best.

A map of the area wandered.

coming soon.

and there was no density to remove from huts...