This text was read by OCR from a scanned newsletter and has not been proofread yet, so expect odd characters and mistakes.
(I’ve never been) to be an excellent day out, sipping good wine and nibbling on tasty food in the warm spring sun whilst being entertained by interesting and innovative performers. Last year (+998) the-festival-was held on the weekend of November 14-15. This same weekend, but beginning on Friday 13%, an enthusiastic bunch of T&Ms set off in the dark to cross farmland at the Ruamahunga roadend and deposit themselves somewhere in the northern Tararuas on the day(s) in question. It was pointed out that attending the Wine & Food Festival was usually quite expensive and no one was disappointed about going tramping instead anyway.
Te Martinborough Wine & Food Festival is said
Friday the 13" is usually a day the superstitious face with caution. I can only assume that no one — in the Medium group anyway — was superstitious as nothing bad or untoward happened to us. We even managed to navigate our way in the dark across extensive farmland where there is very little in the way of track markers or even a worn trail. Having survived Friday the 13%, the Merry Mediums set off along the Ruamahunga track at a sociable hour on Saturday morning. Don and Eric, who continued onto Putara on the Friday (ensuring our transport was in the correct place for the journey home and delivering the Easy group to their desired roadend) were to have an exceptionally early start and meet us at the Cleft Creek junction at 11am. The enlarged group would then follow up the Cleft Creek track to Cow Saddle for lunch and then up the track onto the southern end of Cattle Ridge. We were fully self-sufficient to camp on the ridge --should-+thistake-our-fancy,or-we-could-continue to Cattle Ridge Hut (approx. 2 hours farther) for the night. This first plan ensured a really cruisey day out on the Sunday, dropping down to Roaring Stag Lodge then out to Putara to meet the coach and to catch up with how the Easy trip went. Due to the potential shortness of the day on Sunday versus the length of the day on Saturday it was favoured by a hardy few to do the camping out option, wx dependent and tarn water dependent also.
Ruth Parnell Without going into too much detail, the trip ran fairly much to plan... We met up with Don & Erica short distance up Cleft Creek; Don had apparently taken an impromptu swim in the Ruamahanga River and was trying to dry out and warm up on a gravelly I beach on the side of Cleft Creek. A short distance further up Cleft Creek revealed incredible damage and destruction which had occurred as a result of the storms of early November. The first sign of anything unusual was the creekbed having risen a good two metres at least. Yes, the gravel of the creekbed was partially up the trunks of nearby trees. Numerous windfalls across the track hampered our progress until we came out onto a landscape so altered by the force of water that what was once a creekbed looked more like a riverbed (less the water). The fine silty gravel was in some places set like concrete and in other places wet and squishy underfoot. Many trees had been taken out or buried by the force of nature and water combined. The general consensus was that there must have been debris upstream blocking the valley which, with a buildup of water, must have burst, wreaking all this damage before us. It was at this point, we later found, that we were not quite where we thought we were. There was no track left and it would prove difficult to guess where best to pick it up. We were led by our newest teammates up onto a spur from where we would pick the track up. Well, we did but not quite how we expected to! After grovelling up onto the spur and along it and then a small sidle around it to meet the ridge, we arrived at Cow Saddle for lunch as planned (although from the opposite direction — figure that out!). ‘-eanchtime-entertainmrent-consisted- of Dave bei ng -—— hassled about his bright orange shirt, whilst Don displayed the odd behaviour of throwing his water crackers at the lichen and moss covered trees. He was either a lousy shot or he was not terribly inspired by his lunch and he was probably provoked by the bright orange shirt anyway. We continued as planned onto Cattle Ridge; it was steep uphill territory, head down and one foot in front of the other type stuff. Eventually we emerged from the bush and gained the spur proper. Yay, time for a flake-out rest break — bad jokes, very bad jokes and even worse jokes resounded our selected stop and we soon decided that it must be time to slog up the last 260m to the top. A meandering morning, lunch break, and a 700m climb meant that we were going to be thirsty and water would be at a premium. There are some tarns marked on the ridge but you never know the quality of the vintage on offer... Gaining Cattle Ridge at point 1360m we found ourselves enveloped in the mist and cloud and a steady easterly breeze. We pitched camp virtually as soon as we gained the ridge at a spot near ‘Son of Stonehenge’, a small outcrop of rocks on the edge of the ridge leering spookily in the mist. By putting the flies up on a flattish spot almost on top of the ridge we gained a semi sheltered cooking area were we prepared the evenings feast. First priority was accommodation and appropriate dress for the Tarn Water & Food Festival. Flies up, hot drinks (made from the last of the fresh stream water), the next thing to do was find water. The resulting Waingawa 1998 vintage was a golden water, full bodied, and well matured with a light tangy after taste. Yum! The water sampled (no spitting), it was time to assemble a feast of Beef Stroganoff a la Maggi, on the usual copious quantities of rice and vegetables. You can always tell that the dinner is a good one when silence falls upon the group, everyone enjoying every mouthful and trying to fit in that last spoonful of rice — this was certainly the case on this occasion. The beef was a little chewy but the sauce was divine with that extra sour cream added. The vegetable course was a mixture of assorted fresh garden (supermarket) vegetables lightly cooked in Waingawa 1998 for that added flavour. The rice was done to perfection and not even the slightest hint of being burnt onto the billy. A dessert of berry cheesecakes presented in their boxes and garnished with the odd scrap of lichen followed: --—— The best-organised events do not always go to plan... Sadly this was the case with the entertainment — it never arrived and we had to suffer more bad jokes. The lack of entertainment and a cool breeze saw everyone into their sleeping bags early with tired limbs and content stomachs. It was quite a bizarre atmosphere going to sleep in the cloud, the light still reflecting within the cloud but coming from no particular direction. Then waking the next morning, in the cloud with the same quality of non-directional light. It was as if you had actually blinked and not slept through the night at all. We set off Sunday morning commenting on the great wx the Tararuas had put on for us; it was a real complement to our Tarn Water & Food Festival. Still misted in we continued along Cattle Ridge carefully checking the compass and the map. Visibility was ; poor (10=15m) and we did not want to drop off the ridge by accident. The odd cairn along the way reassured us we were going in the correct direction. There is a gut which drops 120 metres part way along the ridge and no particular track to follow, just find the best way down, avoiding the Spaniards. Ferrida thought the going was just a little tedious, and to make up for the lack of decent entertainment the previous evening, she presented us with her real life impersonation of ‘Tumbleweed’ (refer trip reports, November newsletter). No damage, other than shaken nerves, a scratch or two and bent glasses frames. She sure found the quick way down. Again, other than the tumbleweed incident, everything went according to plan for the walk out. We walked out of the cloud a short distance before Tarn Ridge Hut. We shared morning tea at the hut with a local, normally a farm worker but presently working for DOC doing repairs to the hut and a spot of hunting. We finally set off on the knee-crunching downhill to Roaring Stag Lodge and a yummy lunch beside the river. More fine food, bad jokes and pure fresh Ruamahanga 1998 vintage, quite weak and flavourless compared to the Waingawa tarn variety but refreshing none the less. The last 2~3 hours from Roaring Stag was a fairly uninteresting wander in comparison to the rest of the weekend. But it did offer the fine Tararua mud you can always expect and the last chance to sample ~frestr Tararua~stream “water~Mangatainoka-River tributary 1998 vintage. Now that was probably the closest to an alcoholic drop that was sampled all weekend — “Brewed in Mangatainoka since 1889”. The Merry Mediums, in alphabetical order, were: Andrew Squires, Dave Garratt, Don Goodhue, Eric Blumhart, Kyle Martin, Larry Cameron, Ruth Parnell (intrepid reporter), and were keenly led by: Ferrida (Tumbleweed) Curwood.
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Trip Reports