Burn Hut, Tararua Range, August 2014

Last weekend, after a long period of absence from the bush, I finally headed out on a trip with a couple of my flatmates and one of their mates. 

Man, it was good to get out. I reckon I need an overnight trip once every six weeks (even a short one), and as it had been two months since my last trip, I was getting desperate,. 

The weather forecast looked good for the first time in a long time, but as everyone was leaning towards a shorter, easier weekend trip, we decided to lock in the Burn Hut loop, a loop that I've always wanted to do. 

Burn Hut is a bit of an anomaly in the Tararuas, in that it doesn't really lead to anywhere and so is more of a destination in itself rather than forming part of a big adventure. 

The track starts at the Mangahao dams, about 10km in from Shannon in the Manawatu, on a very rough and windy gravel road. It's perfectly manageable in a 2WD car, though parts of the road could be a bit uncomfortable if your vehicle has low clearance. 

The dams themselves are quite interesting, and the hydro scheme is the only one in the lower North Island. 

The track to Burn Hut starts at the No. 2 Dam. It sidles along the very picturesque Mangahao river for about an hour, before crossing a wooden bridge. After the bridge, the track climbs relatively steeply to about 800m. From there, the track emerges out into scrub and leatherwood and it's a boggy, but more or less flat hour's walk to the hut. The hut is clearly visible from when you first emerge from the trees. 

Just after popping above the treeline

The weather was fantastic - mild and without a puff of wind. The views and the colours were amazing, although after seeing the snow-capped peaks to the South, I couldn't help but wish I was down there, amongst the snow. 

Beautiful evening colours - the hut is straight ahead in the distance

Burn Hut is superbly located on the ridge. It has big open windows to let you make the most of the beautiful outlook. 

It's a cosy, 6 bunker hut that doesn't seem to get a great deal of use, probably due to its off the beaten track location. 

Almost at the hut

The evening of a fine day is a great time to be on the tops and we took our time walking to the hut, soaking up the atmosphere. It was very peaceful and relaxing and was probably the highlight of the trip. 

Walking along the wide, flat ridge to the hut you can see the East Coast and the upper Wairarapa to one side and the Manawatu plains and the Tasman Sea to the other side. 

Looking North West from the hut

We were lucky enough to have the hut to ourselves for the night, and aside from a couple we bumped into, walking down from a day trip, we were the first people to visit the hut in over a month. 

Hut interior

Although there's no heating, the hut is very clean and tidy and is a good, compact size, so once dinner's on and there's a few people in there, it warms up quite nicely. It's a fairly modern hut, and would be less than 1 years old. It has a vestibule by the front door (but no deck), which keeps the bags and boots out of the hut and frees up a bit more space. 

The long drop, my female flatmate reported, was the best she'd ever experienced - clean and having a pleasant lemongrass and orange aroma!

The hut has a fantastic supply of tea light candles by the way, there's a bag of about 300 sitting in the vestibule!

After a pleasant evening reading and eating, we all retired to bed by 9pm.

From the hut, it's possible to travel further up the hill and then back down to the Mangahao River, which takes around 3hrs. From there, it's a further 4km along the gravel road back to the starting point. As my flatmate needed to be back in Wellington early afternoon, we opted for the easier option of retracing our steps. 

Heading back down the next morning

A fantastic wee trip and a great hut! Hopefully it won't be as long before I head out on the next trip.

Kime Hut, Tararua Range, May 2014

My flatmate, Anita, had purchased her first pair of tramping boots and was keen to give them a whirl. I'd suggested a trip to Kime Hut, being a cool spot and not too far to get to. We'd planned to head to Kime in Easter, but due to the bad weather forecast, we gave it a miss. The weather forecast this weekend was much more promising though, so we decided to head out and up to Kime from Otaki Forks. 

Although both Metservice and Mountain-Forecast.com had promised me fine, clear, weather, the reality at Otaki Forks didn't quite reconcile (I was going to say match up, but reconcile is a much more exciting word for an accountant). 

Although eerily calm, there was a faint drizzle as we pushed our way up the Southern Crossing track towards Field Hut. They'd completed a bit of work on the track from where it enters the bush to just before Field Hut from when I was last up here. The new gravel on the track cuts out a lot of the really bad muddy sections, while at the same time not upgrading the track to a highway, great walk style.

We arrived at Field Hut to a bunch of very loud and excitable teenagers, accompanied by their parents. I was not keen to linger any longer than necessary. The hills are meant to be a peaceful place and this sounded like what I imagine Queensgate Mall to sound like in the school holidays. Ugh. We had to get moving anyway, as it had taken about 45 minutes longer to get to Field than I'd previously done and I'd expected to be there much sooner than that, so we needed to push on to avoid walking in the dark.

The drizzle had stopped by this point, and we enjoyed a calm walk across Table Top. 

Just past Table Top

We finally arrived at the new Kime Hut just on dark. It was quite clagged in and I was disappointed, as it's always kinda nice to take people to a new spot and show it off. But views weren't the forefront of my mind at this point. It was dinner time!

I chucked the pasta in the billy to boil and went to get the container of vegetables, spices and chorizo I'd chopped up earlier. Only to find it wasn't there. I'd left it in the fridge at home. Dammit. So pasta and pasta sauce for dinner it was. I wasn't popular. 

Luckily, we were so hungry we pretty much cleaned the billy out (500g of cooked pasta between three people!) anyway. And we had lots of chocolate and tea for dessert.

The new Kime hut is quite large and without any form of heating. Although it's well insulated (double glazed windows too!), it's a cold place to be. We were sharing the hut with six others and everyone was in the sleeping bags in bed reading by 7.30pm. Much nicer to be doing that than feeling cold sitting around a table. 

After a solid 10 hour sleep, I awoke to a special surprise. 

Kime Hut looking South

Looking North with the rest of the Tararuas in the background

Looking East towards the Wairarapa

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Not a bad way to start the day, huh? Although the pictures don't show it (it could be seen quite clearly, it's just my camera's not good enough), we could see Mt Taranaki, Mt Ruapehu, the Wairarapa, Wellington Harbour and the South Island all from one spot. It was quite something. I've never before been able to see so many different geographical features from one spot. 

The Tararuas are quite a private range. They are almost always covered up in some sort of cloud or mist. And it the skirt is lifted, it's usually only a tease; a small peek through a brief gap in the clouds. It's quite rare to be able to see the whole range and surrounds in its entirety. So I was particularly taken aback by the views today. 

Looking West with Kapiti Island in the background

The new Kime Hut is large, modern and practical. It's largely based on DOC's template modern hut and doesn't have a lot of character. But what new structure does? Character develops over time. But I think it's quite difficult for a large, popular barn such as this to develop the sense of quaint cosiness that many of the smaller, older backcountry huts have. 

Like the old hut (which actually had a fire and a wood lined interior to give it more of a feeling if cosiness), it's a cold place to be and not the sort of place where one could happily linger for a few days. Although as the sun came out, we opened all the windows in the hut and sat on the deck for a bit to enjoy the calm, warm rays. On days like this, Kime Hut was a nice spot to be, but days such as this apparently only occur on about 40 days of the year in the Tararuas. 

I was so struck with the beautiful sunrise that I forgot to get a good close up picture of the new hut and interior, but here's the best one I took. Nothing amazing. 

After a leisurely breakfast, we began the walk back down to Otaki forks again. 

On the way back down to Otaki Forks

I didn't really want to go back down. On a day like this, I just wanted to get out and explore all those other places I've been meaning to go for ages. Like up to Mt Hector, and back to Otaki forks via Elder and Renata huts, or to complete the section between Maungahuka and Waitewaewae huts I've never gotten around to doing. Ah, the possibilities. 

Approximate timings:

Otaki Forks - Field Hut: 2-3hrs
Field Hut - Kime Hut: 2-3hrs

Field Hut