Te Matawai Again 29-31/07/2011

A Friday drive to Poads road and walk in to Te Matawai hut with a work mate. Another great weekend in the Tararua's with a weather forecast predicting a Saturday southerly.

Friday 29/07/2011
The weather was perfect for spotting wetas, millipedes, and big fat green slugs. We headed off from Poads Road at 1440.  At 1558 we where at the Gable End turnoff and from there on the pace was going down as we got to the junction at 1918 a 3 hour uphill plug. By 2025 we where in Weta country.

And there where a few more before we got to the hut.

Millipede.

The big fat green slug hanging out on the Otaki sign.

New Zealand Land Slugs — Part I
New Zealand Land Slugs Part II
Soilbugs Massey NZ

And from here its a ten to fifteen minute walk to Te Matawai hut; we arrived at nine thirty three, which made that one hell of a slow trip at almost seven hours.

Saturday 30/07/2011
A wander up to Arete and back for Saturday afternoon, as the forecast Southerly, rain and cloud did not eventuate. It was rather cold wandering up the ridge to the top of Arete.

The view of Bannister from Arete was grey and cold.

And Mitre has a nice profile from this angle.

An evening of nourishment, potatoes, mushrooms, whisky, and a beer. Note that Carl!

Sunday 31/07/2011
After a sleeping a walk back to Poads road with such awesome weather.

Te Matawai 8-10/07/2011

Wandering off to the hills with a decent storm warning. We know it means the huts are not full. And if the weather is real bad well then we sit there an get warm by the fire and drink a bit of Bowmore 12yo.

Friday 08/07/2011
It was a slow walk in for the Friday night over running into the Saturday.

• 1909 Left car at Poads Road end.
• 1924 At Waiopehu turnoff.
• 2019 At start of Gable End track.
• 2257 At gable End track junction
• 0006 At South Ohau turnoff.
• 0023 At Otaki River track turnoff.
• 0036 At Te Matawai hut.

And at the hut we got the fire going and had some beer and food, crashing at 0200'ish.


Saturday 09/07/2011
Another good sleep in, in what is becoming one of my favourite huts. We decided to head off down to the Otaki river for a look see. It is not a bad track down there. This is what it has at the bottom:

So we went down the river for a ways and as it got deeper and colder with the clouds dimming the light we headed back up. Further up past the track up to Te Matawai Carl spotted a cairn so we headed off up a ridge and found an old track not maintained. We saw that this would lead to Dracophyllum track South of Butcher Knob so made a decision and headed off up through some nice forest.

We eventually joined the marked track and got ourselves into thunder and lightening along with very strong winds and hail. An interesting afternoons walk. A nice view along the ridge:

We had a break in the clag and got a bit of a view into the Park river at one time:

And on we went cranking up the pace as the forces where gathering and the darkness was coming. We got back to Te Matawai just on dark and minutes after getting to the hut the storm arrived and hail and rain just pelted down. A great night for a wee dram and a good sleep.

Sunday 10/07/2011
The walk out on this day was via Waiopehu hut as we needed to check how long that takes.

• 1232 Left Te Matawai
• 1241 Otaki River turnoff
• 1253 South Ohau turnoff.
• 1349 Gable Ens junction.
• 1435 Waiopehu hut.
• 1525 Left Waiopehu hut after a lunching.
• 1653 Six disc track junction.
• 1723 Junction.
• 1736 At the car.

A map

Awesome results for today as we removed one more weirdo thing from the hills.