This text was read by OCR from a scanned newsletter and has not been proofread yet, so expect odd characters and mistakes.
(LAKE ORIWA “BOATING?” TRIP, 25 - 27 MARCH 1994) I By Harty Smith Examine carefully a map of the Tararuas and, in amongst the smudges and mould from Tararua rain, the stains from Tararua mud, and the rips and tears from Tararua gales, you will find, up in the top left hand corner, high on a ridge top in behind Levin, in the middle of one of the least tracked and least visited sections of the ranges, a cryptic reference to a feature variously described (depending upon which edition of the map you have) as Lake Oriwa, or Oriwa Lake Hollow. What is this place, I wondered? |s it really a lake? How easy is it to get to? And how many people ever go there? I had never been there, and wanted to find out. And so it was that I found myself being dropped off at the Ohau Pipe Bridge roadend one Friday night in March, onatrip to check out this strange feature. Since we were heading for the only officially named “lake” in the Tararuas, the trip had, for a joke, officially become a “boating trip”, and my trip promotion had talked about “legendary lost lakes”. But despite - or maybe because of - this, the trip had only managed to attract two other people, Michael Duffy and Pat Duffy. Piling out of the Duchess, we headed off towards Ohau Shelter by torch light, for no better reason than that Joseph’s Mediums were doing the same thing, We arrived there an hour and a half later to find it even more ‘dilapidated and vandalised than ever, and quickly grabbed the only decent fly site before the threatening rain arrived. The Mediums, eyeing up our campsite, told us that, being Fits, we should roughit and sleep in the shelter, but after one look at it we decided that we weren't that hardy. “There’s a good camp site twenty minutes up river”, we told Joe’s party, and watched them trudge off into the darkness. Next morning we set off up Gable End Ridge. After a climb up through the bush, we emerged onto the long track through the leatherwood, before the final, steep grunt up onto the open top of Twin Peak, where we stopped for lunch beside the trig and grave site. The views were great; out over Te Matawai Hut, Dundas Ridge, the Northem Main Range the dreaded Camelbacks, and far below, Lake Horowhenua and Levin.
After lunch we wandered over to the top of Mt Waiopehu, and set off southwards along Oriwa Ridge. Initially there were signs of a track through the scrub and ‘leatherwood, but we soon lostit, and for a short while the
going was slow and grovelly. However, at the saddle ~ south of Mt Waiopehu the vegetation changed into open beech forest and progress became much easier. After an hour of easy travel, with an occasional stop to check the map and compass bearing, we suddenly — emerged from the beech forest. Before us lay a pretty little hollow of open tussock and shrubs, nestled between low, beech-covered ridges. This was obviously the Oriwa Lake Hollow which we had come to see. On one side stood a small, bright orange, three-person bivvy - hut witha most welcome water tank outside. Across the other side, a small shed with an attached radio antenna peeked out of the bushes; later investigation revealed this to be an automatic rain monitoring station. Atone comer of the hollow, a gapin the surrounding ridges gave a view of the high peaks of the Northern Main Range out to the east. There was only one thing that the Lake Hollow was missing, and that was a lake! Someone had obviously pulled the plug and stolen all the water. There was a swampy area down the far end of the hollow, but this hardly constituted the glistening lake waters lapping gently against the golden, sandy, palm-tree studded beach of my imagination. I confess to being slightly disappointed - but not really surprised! And, strange as it may seem, we had accidentally forgotten to bring our canoes and dinghies with us anyway! Still, even without a lake the Lake Hollow really was a lovely spot - a small oasis amongst the relatively boring beech forest. But perhaps the most fascinating feature of all was the bivvy log book. This goes back to 1975 almost twenty years - and is still only half full. And there isn’t a German or American name in sight; instead there is an interesting record of visits by trampers and hunters over the years, including many Tongue & Meats. lan Bunckenburg was one of the first club members in the book,in 1975. Brian Hunt was herein 1976, and again, with Alastair Booth, in 1991. David Humm, a former organiser of the Club’s AlCs, paid a visit in 1984. Dale Parsons, a former Chief Guide, was here in 1985 or thereabouts. . Gary Goldsworthy has passed through several times (though admittedly, as a “Hutt Valley” rather than a — “Tongue & Meat”), There were many other entries for Club members back in the 70s and early 80s whose names Ididn’t recognise. Tongue & Meat trips to the area seem to have been quite common back then, constituting a significant proportion of the entries in the log book, but - ina sign of the times, perhaps - have been few and far between over the last ten years (although Matthew Grainger did pay a visit not too long ago). Maybe the bloody club really has gone to the bloody dogs, as Pete Goodwin would say.
We set up camp under the beech trees directly across the hollow from the bivvy, put a good brew on the primus, and proceeded to while away the rest of the afternoon and evening in the pleasant surroundings.
Next moming we reluctantly had to leave. Our route was down the obvious spur directly behind the bivvy into the head of the Makaretu Stream. The spur proved easy going and just over an hour later we had reached the stream, where we paused for a rest and a drink before heading off downstream.
I had never been in the Makaretu before but! had heard that it was very nice, and.so it proved to.bé. This top section, with its easy.gravel bed sandwiched between steep hillsides, reminded me more of a Ruahine-than a Tararua river. Further down, in the middle section, it opened out with wide toetoe-studded flats. We stopped for lunch in this section, on a convenient grassy bank in the sun. Further down again the stream closed in once more, becoming gorgy, but the travel was never difficult. Mike stopped for a quick swim in‘one particularly nice pool. Finally we emerged at the farmland, directly opposite our starting point at the Pipe Bridge. And so ended a good trip into aninteresting comer of the Tararuas. Overall this was really only a Medium grade trip, that I’m sure virtually anyone in the Club would be capable of. So let’s get a few more people out in the hills the next time this area appears on the trip schedule!