Mt Hikurangi, January 2013

This trip was a while ago, but was a superb one. 

Being from Gisborne, I'd always wanted to tackle Mt Hikurangi on the East Coast. Hikurangi is a striking peak, and I think it is one of the North Island's most distinct mountains, and a classic climb that every tramper should attempt. It's about half an hour's drive inland from Ruatoria, which is about 1 3/4 hours drive North East of Gisborne. 

At 1754m, it's the highest non-volcanic peak in the North Island, and a relative outlier from the main Raukumara Range, which forms part of the main spine of mountains stretching from the Rimutakas to the East Cape.

Unfortunately, most of the track (distance wise) up to Hikuarangi is across a sheep and beef farm, but this does mean that the peak can be reached relatively quickly and simply. Of course there's the option to walk up the farm track, but Ngati Porou (the farm owners) also offer the option to be driven up the farm track to the hut at the border of the Raukumara Forest Park. However, this does come at the hefty price of $200.

Completing the climb with my uncle, who had a sore knee, meant that we opted for the drive up to the hut. Although I felt lazy and as if it were cheating to get a ride up to the hut, if my uncle was getting a ride, I may as well too! It also meant that we could complete the trip in a day. We may have been able to do this regardless, with just day packs, but it would have meant a 9 hour day. Not that appealing on a day in January in the East Coast sun.

The views from the hut, only five minutes walk from the end of the 4WD track, are fantastic. 

Whanakao, with the Eastern Bay of Plenty in the background

The peaks around Hikurangi, and Hikurangi itself, are quite something. They appear as giant monoliths, seemingly out of nowhere. 

The hut (1200m), known as the 'Gisborne Canoe and Tramping Club Hut', and built by the club of the same name, is a short walk from the end of the farm track, just on the border of the Forest Park. It's not a particularly well cared for hut, with bits of the roof lining hanging down, holes in the mattresses and only a few patches of wood covering the exterior corrugated iron, but I kinda like it. Although the hut is rather lonely in a barren paddock, and not even in the bush, it still feels as though you're away from everything. It is probably one of the most isolated huts in New Zealand, being far away from any population centre. The sheer distance required to even get to the carpark to the hut gives it an immediate feeling of isolation. 

The longdrop is horrendous, with a door that doesn't close properly. 

The Raukumara Forest Park is a true wilderness area. The route (most of the way up) Hikurangi is the only track in the entire park, so travelling elsewhere within the park would be a true navigational and physical challenge.

The track climbs steeply from behind the hut, through a grassy patch with regenerating bush on the sides. 

The views on the way up are just fantastic. It's an amazingly clear day, with not a cloud to be seen anywhere.

Looking out to Wharekia, with Ruatoria and the East Coast behind, about 150m elevation above the hut

After a short section of stunted mountain beech trees, we emerge onto the tussock and the gradient eases off as we walk on the flanks of Hikurangi, behind it.

We pass a tarn, framed by remains of dead leatherwood. The tarn and surrounding alpine vegetation must be the Northern-most in New Zealand, and so this area is quite significant botanically. Despite this, I feel no more partial to my encounters with speargrass on the way up. If anything, its sharp jabs seem more arrogant than usual. 

After a steep section of scree, we reach a big gully for the final push to the top.

Steep section of scree on the flanks of Hikurangi

Bottom of the steep gully

The track/ route from the hut, up to the gully is poled and isn't difficult to follow at all. But there are no markers after you reach the gully, which is VERY steep, with lots of loose rock. But at least you can see the top of the gully in the distance, so there is a clear goal to aim for. In snow conditions, this gully would be quite an undertaking. 

At the top of the gully, the views of the East Coast once again emerge, and we can see the summit. Quite a reward after scrambling up that gully!

Aorangi with Ruatoria in the distance

The summit, with trig station

But the final section is probably the worst bit of the whole climb. There's an area (of which I didn't photograph), where you have to scale the side of the cliff, clinging onto vegetation, with a steep 1500m drop below. This is on the upper rocky knob in the photograph, just before you get to the knob with the trig on it. My heart is definitely pounding, but the adrenalin from seeing the summit so close gets me through it.

At the summit!

Whanakao from the summit

I've never before experienced a view as complete as the one we get from the summit. We can see the entire East Cape of New Zealand, stretching from Opotiki in the Bay of Plenty, down to Gisborne at the bottom of the East Coast. It's really special to be able to see such a large and distinctly shaped part of New Zealand in its entirely. It makes you realise just how small New Zealand really it. It's quite something.

We don't linger at the summit long. It's very windy, and I really want to get that cliff scaling section over and done with before I can start to relax on the climb down. 

We stop at the hut for lunch on the way out. By this time my brother and sister are really feeling the day's efforts. They had the beginnings of the flu the day before the climb, and for them the carpark just can't come soon enough.

The walk down the 4WD farm track is long, very hot, and tedious, but we make steady progress. I think the encounters with some staunch looking bulls in the paddocks give us an additional reason to keep the pace up. I look back to the mountain quite a bit on the way down. It's quite satisfying having climbed Hikurangi, and being able to look back on the achievement. We soon roll up at the Ruatoria Four Square for all those food items we'd been thinking about on the way down. Ice cream, ice cold coke. A pie. 

Back in Gisborne, I shared some pictures of the trip with my great-grandmother. Her next door neighbour popped around and mentioned that he had climbed Hikurangi some 30 times, but had never been on the mountain and had the weather conditions to offer the clear 360 degree views that we had received on our first climb up the mountain! 

Approx timings:

Carpark to Hut: 3.5hrs
Hut to summit: 2hrs
Summit to hut: 1.5hrs
Hut to road end/ carpark: 2.5hrs

Howletts Hut, March 2014

I thought I'd start the blog with a post about what was quite possibly my most favourite hut I've ever had the privilege to spend a night in. Howletts Hut. 

When sifting across the Topo Maps of the Ruahines, which I sometimes do when bored in the evenings, the Longview-Howletts-Daphne loop often stuck out as a cool place to go. 

Finally, in March this year, I'd arranged to head there with a mate.

We got to Hawkes Bay on a gorgeous, sunny day. Unfortunately my Toyota station wagon did not take a liking to steep gravel hill climbs, spinning out on a section of Kashmir Road. After initial fears of skidding off the road down the cliff below, or not being able to get to the carpark, the car finally managed to skid its way up the remaining third of the hill. Tip for next time: take a 4WD, or build up a good amount of speed before tackling the climb. We eventually hit the track up to Longview Hut around midday.

The vegetation is quite bare along this section, meaning the hut can be seen for most of the walk up to it. This is initially useful, being able to see the target and realising it wasn't all too far away. But there's this annoying bit in the middle where the hut suddenly seems to get pushed further away and you realise it's not as easy as you first thought. 

But after an hour and a half slog we reach Longview Hut, and are rewarded with clear views out over Central Hawkes Bay.

Although offering good views, Longview, built in 1979 by the NZ Deerstalkers Association, is not an attractive hut by any means. It has a high pitched ceiling, which is never welcome in a hut of this altitude (1200m), and a boring, characterless interior. It's not a place where I'd like to spend a night after a cold day in the hills. But it does have a great deck, and we join a hunter and his dogs there for lunch.

Longview Hut interior

From Longview, the track becomes a poled route. I maintain that since our high point of the day is Otumore (1519m), and we're already at 1200m, it won't be much more of a climb to go. It turns out 319 is a long way up, especially when you have to go up, then down, then up again. And ESPECIALLY when there are about three false peaks on the way up. You know, the ones where you think you're about to crest the top, but as soon as you reach the horizon, there's another monster that pops up that has to be climbed. 

Dr Dan climbing up from Longview Hut with Hawkes Bay in the background. Longview is just over the ridge stretching to the right of the photo

Finally, we reach Otumore and the turn off to Top Gorge Hut. From here the tops flatten out a bit and views of the Western side of the range open up, which is a refreshing change from the wall of tussock we've been facing for the past 90 minutes. 

Looking North West from just past Otumore

The trail is barely defined in some places, but the poles appear regularly enough that there is no trouble finding the route on the clear day. Annoyingly, though, the poles are just plain rusted metal with no coloured markers on top and they tend to blend in to the landscape a bit so can take a bit of scanning to find the next one. After a windy but pleasant hour on the ridge, we come across a group of four trampers having a break at the intersection to Daphne Hut. Two of them look a bit like they're the men from the Mainland Cheese ad, complete with border collie. 

There's one major climb left before the hut, and with the knowledge that the 10-bunk Howletts Hut can be a popular place on a Saturday night, we figure we can push on past the guys to try and gain at least a bit of a lead and beat them to the hut. 

Although the climb proves to be less of an effort than expected, the next stretch, going slightly downhill, is a mission. There is a lot of leatherwood to push through before reaching the hut. And it takes FOREVER. Definitely gaiter territory here. However, there always seems to be a way through/around it, but finding it takes a lot of trial and error and we generally just give up and try to push through it. 

Dan pushing through the leatherwood

Eventually, though, we reach Howletts. It proves to be perfect timing. There is one guy at the hut when we arrive (who just happened to be part way through a trip walking from the East Cape down to Wellington). Literally seconds after we arrive, the first members of a group of 7 arrive. With the four guys we passed also due to spend the night at the hut, we're very happy to have reached the hut when we did to secure a bunk. Thankfully, some of the group decide to pop down to Daphne hut to spend the night, and a couple opt for a night on the deck, so everyone's happy in the end. 

Howletts hut is superbly located. It's placed in a snug hollow on a ridge, with steep drops on either side. When looking out from the front deck, it almost feels like you're in a giant tree hut. This version of the hut was built in the 70s, but it has a character far beyond its years. I just love the bright NZFS orange roof and the contrast with the freshly painted blue walls. It's a well loved and cared for hut. It has a hand carved hut book case, a cute crows nest space above the front door for two mattresses and a library of reading material, much of it carefully placed in clearfiles. Howletts is owned and maintained by the Heretaunga Tramping Club, and has been in the same spot since 1893 (this is the third version), when an eccentric local schoolteacher, William Howlett, plonked a hut in the spot. 

There's not a great deal of space in the hut - no table either, and so the evening (after the Kaweka butter chicken had been devoured for dinner) was spent lounging in the bunks eating chocolate and reading the newspaper we'd carted up, until it got dark enough to sleep. A thick blanket of clouds quickly rolled in during the evening, as if the Ruahines were being tucked into bed, too.

But the next morning, the Ruahines had definitely gotten out of bed. I awoke to this gorgeous view from the bunk. Pretty impressive. It almost felt like we were on a plane, with the lower layer of cloud smothering Hawkes Bay below.  

After a breakfast of oats and coffee, we left the hut and walked down the knee-jarringly steep Daphne ridge down to Daphne hut. 

Daphne Hut is a pleasant, if unusually shaped, A-frame hut. Plenty of space, but the valley was very cold and dark in the morning. Not much sun down here.

From Daphne hut, we walked down the Tukituki river for a bit. It proved to be a nice contrast from the tops and bush travel and it was nice to have a gentle gradient.It was a very shallow, meandering river. 

North Branch of the Tukituki River, just downstream from Daphne Hut

Next up was the final climb of 600m or so, up over a ridge on the way back to Kashmir Road. The gradient wasn't too bad though. By the time we started going back down, Dan's knee was playing up and he was forced to go down the hill sideways, even backwards on the steepest sections, whatever hurt less. Near the top of the ridge before dropping back down to the carpark, we managed to get a wee glimpse of Sawtooth Ridge in the distance. I'd love to do that trip one day.  

After a short walk back along Kashmir Road to the car, we had an uneventful drive out on the gravel road. 

A satisfying round trip, with some fantastic views.  

Approx timings:

Kashmir Rd (Moorcock Saddle) to Longivew Hut: 1.5hrs
Longivew Hut to Otumore: 1.5hrs
Otumore to Daphne Hut turn off: 1hr
Daphne Hut turn off to Howletts: 1hr
Howletts to Daphne Hut: 1.5hrs
Daphne Hut to Kashmir Rd: 3hrs