This text was read by OCR from a scanned newsletter and has not been proofread yet, so expect odd characters and mistakes.
Fo an easy, pleasant tramp, the southern Haurangis are one of my favourite places; personally I think they’re one of the best-kept tramping secrets in the southern North Island. All their advantages can be summed up in a single sentence: they’re not the Tararuas. The coastal scenery is unlike anything in the Tararuas. The huts are never crowded. The bush, a mosaic of beech and coastal broadleaf species, is interesting and diverse. And the weather, unlike that of their bigger neighbours to the north-west, is usually good. “Ah,” I hear you say, “but there are no open tops in the Haurangis.” Well you're wrong—as Sue, Peggy, Shane, Robbie, and I found out ona trip last December.
We got dropped off by the Duchess late on Friday night at the Kawakawa bridge and quickly found a campsite in the scrub. Our plans were to head in up the Kawakawa and then pick a route through the untracked country to the southeast over into Stonewall Basin, hopefully spending Saturday night at Frog Tarn, a pleasant sheltered campsite tucked inside the bush just below the open ridgeline around the head of Stonewall Basin which I had |~ stumbled across on a previous trip a few years ago. It was a fit trip and I leader. “Better make sure I get the troops up early tomorrow,” I said to myself as I lay watching the stars twinkle overhead, “it’s an unknown route
and it could be a long day.” I needn’t have worried. Next morning at 6.30 Robbie and Sue were already up and about, busy preparing a brew. “Come on you guys, it’s only a Fit trip!”, I found myself saying, lying comfortably in my pit while the others did the work, but despite my best efforts to sleep in longer we were away by 7.30! Such are the burdens of leadership!
The walk in up the Kawakawa was very pleasant, following a rough 4WD track through hilly farmland with bush on the hills and in the gullies—one of my favourite types of country. An hour and a half later we neared the boundary of the forest park. Just downstream from this is a private bach, and there were people in residence. They invited us in for a cup of tea.
Entering, we were surprised to find the walls of the bach “tastefully’” decorated from floor to ceiling with girlie magazine pinups. I looked around, expecting to see a group of teenage male hunters, and was surprised to be greeted instead by a group of little old ladies. “Would you like a cup of tea, dear?” they asked. “Er, do you own this place?” I asked, bemused. “Oh yes, we’ve been coming here for 40 years,” they replied. “It’s just like home.” Glancing around I saw that not just the lounge but all the bunkrooms and other spaces were “decorated” in the same way. “Have a piece of chocolate cake, dear,” they invited, while bare breasts and buttocks stared down from the walls in all directions. Bizarre, absolutely bizarre! After accepting tea and cake we continued on our way. At this exact time, Struan “Rain God” Little, on a T.O. trip with Clare Kempster (a real blast from the past), was getting out of his tent in the Pararaki Valley to the north-west. How do I know this? Because it started to rain, that’s how. We took shelter in Kawakawa Hut and discussed our options.
I had studied the map long and hard before the trip, trying to suss out the best-looking route from the Kawakawa catchment over into Stonewall Basin. The country looked steep and gorgey and the bush was likely to be thick and scrubby. The route I had decided upon involved following the south-eastern headwaters of the Kawakawa, then climbing out up a steep spur leading directly to the ridgeline to the north of Stonewall Basin. However, the people at the bach had told us that all the headwaters of the Kawakawa waterfalled out, and grovelling around in the rain in vertical sodden, scrubby bush trying to circumvent waterfalls did not seem very inviting. Still, we wanted to get over into Stonewall Basin so we decided route.
We continued on up the southeastern branch of the Kawakawa in the rain. Just before the track climbs out up to the saddle over into the Mangatoetoe we hung a left and continued on up the cont'd from page 10 main branch of the river. This section of river was the crux of my planned route. On the map it looked narrow and gorgey} would it go, or would it be blocked by impassable pools and waterfalls? We were about to find out.
After a short distance of easy going the stream began to become gorgey. The sides began to steepen and close in. Then we came to a tricky-looking waterfall. Was this just the start of more nasty things to come?
We scrambled up the right hand side of the waterfall to a ledge, swung across a pool to the other side, and hauled ourselves up to the top with the aid of a handy tree. We were past the first obstacle.
The next kilometre or so proved to be fun going, rocky and gorgey but never impassable. Finally we came to the fork in the stream and my intended spur. Fifty yards further on the main stream was blocked by an absolutely impassable waterfall, but there in front of us my spur rose clear and accessible.
We set up the fly and had a quick lunch huddled out of the rain, but it was getting cold so we soon packed up and began the ascent of the spur. This was easy travel, and eventually we got into low alpine scrub. Unexpectedly, there seemed to be a cut track through the scrub to the top of the ridge. Here, right in the middle of nowhere, tucked away in the scrub, we came unexpectantly across a hut! Some of the local lads had obviously decided they needed a base for hunting in this area and had surreptitiously choppered in a few building supplies. The hut was pretty ramshackle and gerrybuilt, but it was dry and we took shelter from the’ rain and wind.
After a break we carried on around the tops. From the hut we dropped down into a low saddle, then climbed up an open, rocky ridge to a prominent peak. We were surprised to find a transmitter aerial of some sort on top. From here our route led down a broad tussocky slope, with no sign of a track which we could see. To the right there was a massive drop off down a huge slip. We checked the compass bearing, then. blundered our way down the slope to another low saddle and the welcoming shelter of the bush. Conditions were.cold and miserable, much more typical of conditions in the Tararuas than what you would normally associate with the Haurangis. However, the clagged in conditions and lack of visibility gave an added air of mystery and remoteness to the surroundings. Who would have expected to find open tops like this in the Haurangis? In reality we were probably on the only bit of open country for miles around, but in the conditions it felt as if the open tops could have continued on uninterrupted in all directions.
From the saddle we climbed upwards again, back on a track once again, towards Mt Barton. The weather was easing but there was still a cold southerly. Continuing south along the rocky crest of the range, we were reaching the area where we would have to drop off to the right, but in-the clag it was hard to locate our hidden campsite. I was the only one who had been there before.
“Don’t worry, I know where I’m going,” I said, trying to sound confident. “Just down this rocky bit,” I announced knowledgeably, secretly trying to distinguish one rocky section of ridge from all the rest and fit it in with what I remembered from a few years ago. I scanned anxiously around, but could recognize nothing in the clag. What I remembered was a gentle rocky knob, but what we seemed to be on was a steep rocky face.
Suddenly out to the right I heard the faint sound of frogs croaking invisibly in the distance. “Yep, I recognise this perfectly, it should be just out to the right,” I announced, bluffing expertly. Sure enough, we headed. down in that direction and soon found our way to the large, swampy tarn, tucked just inside the bush below the ridgeline. An overgrown track led us round toa flat, ‘grassy campsite at the northern end. The fly was soon up, and some of us quickly retired to our pits to escape the freezing southerly, leaving some of the hardier types to prepare dinner.
Next day was brilliantly fine. We “continued southwards along the ridgetop for a kilometre or two, admiring the views. To our right we looked out over Stonewall Basin and across the Haurangis to glimpses of the Rimutaka Range beyond. Behind us to the left was White Rock Bay. And far cont’d from page 11 below us up ahead and down to our left was the blue sea. At one point we could perch on the, edge of the bluff and peer down at the narrow coastal flat two and a half thousand feet below.
The map showed a prominent spur dropping due westwards into Stonewall Basin, an obvious route down—or so I thought. In fact, this turned out to be one of the more grovelly spurs I have followed for a long time. The middle third was good going, easy open beech forest, but the top and bottom thirds were thick, scrubby, and overgrown.
When we finally reached the valley floor I was so hot and sweaty I plunged straight into a convenient pool in the stream to cool off, but nobody else would join me.
After a rest we set off down valley. The going was good, except for one tricky spot where the valley walls steepened and narrowed and the stream plunged over a small waterfall. The only way down was to sit astride a large sloping log jammed in the gap and wriggle down backwards into the middle of a pool at the bottom! Eventually the valley spread out into a large open basin, below which a steep ridgeline cut us off from the coast beyond. The stream breaks out through this barrier through a narrow, steep-walled gorge with impassable waterfalls.
To bypass the gorge we climbed up the steep hillside for several hundred feet, onto a prominent grassy spur. From here, when I had been this way a few years ago, there had been a good track across the hillside above the gorge to another prominent grassy spur at the bottom of the gorge. This was now very overgrown but still followable. From this second spur we picked our way down the hillside through bluffs, and finally emerged onto the coastal terrace at the mouth of the stream. The hard part of the trip was over; all that remained was an easy hour’s stroll back along the coastal track in the afternoon sunshine to the lighthouse and the waiting Duchess.
Frog Tarn and the open tops around the head of Stonewall Basin have become my favourite part of the Haurangis, and I’m looking forward to going back there again sometime. More people from the Club should visit this fascinating area. “Pm not one to ZOSsip but...”
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By Harry Smith