This text was read by OCR from a scanned newsletter and has not been proofread yet, so expect odd characters and mistakes.
hile some may liken them to the Paparoas, my three club trips to the Tararuas this year have yielded a hat-trick of fine weather. On the weekend of 12-14 October, a group of five (Ruth Parnell, Yibai He, Sharon Brandford, Andrew Mann and myself) set off on an easy-medium trip to Jumbo Hut after over-nighting at Donnelly Flats. Not that things looked too promising at the start. As we headed towards Mountain House, trip leader Ruth (a Tararua veteran despite her youth) was able to describe the views we would have seen on a clear day. We peered through the clouds and imagined Totara Flats and the Wairarapa plains beyond. So it was with minimal expectations that we headed for the Holdsworth summit after lunch at Powell Hut. We were greeted with views right to the coast, while behind us to the east and north the cloud still swirled in an impenetrable fog. Ruth helped put names to the various peaks and ranges spread before us, although the spot marked “crashed aircraft” on the map was pretty self-explanatory. (Someone suggested the plane came to grief during World War 2
Paul Christoffel
when fighter pilots apparently trained in the area.) After a photo shoot and knocking the snow off the trig station, we headed along the ridge to Jumbo peak. This was a weird experience, as we had on one side great views of the ranges to the south and on the other a bank of cloud that stopped abruptly just metres away. At Jumbo Hut the cloud soon cleared, and we were treated to views of the Wairarapa right to the sea. The lights of Masterton even looked impressive come nightfall. Among our hut companions was a party of nine from the Tararua Tramping Club, doing an almostidentical trip (except that they drove up on Saturday morning) and giving it the same easy/medium grading. Coincidence or espionage? You decide. Yibai stayed at the front of the party all day, despite lugging the world’s largest tin of tuna for dinner — a yummy Thai green curry with basmati rice (well, I guess the instructions didn’t specify what size tin). Later a bearded and exhausted-looking senior citizen stumbled through the door, looking like he’d been lost in the bush for a week with only Jack the Ruth Parnell i dog for company. Gerald turned out to be a voluntary hut warden who’d set out at midday from the Mitre Flats roadend (this is, I can testify, one hell of a walk). Don Goodhue later informed us that Gerald is a “local character”, and arriving after dark looking on his last legs is his party trick. After a reviving hot chocolate he was soon talking 90-to-the-dozen in a monotone akin to the guy who gives fruit and vegetable advice on National Radio. He didn’t inform us that cauliflowers were a good buy, but did ask for our vegetable scraps for his compost. Jack was cute and friendly, and despite Gerald’s feigned protestations, the Tararua club women insisted he sleep inside. The following day we were greeted by a gale alter a near-windless Saturday. It was Raingauge Spur with Yibai leading the way free of his tuna burden. The wind subsided as we lost altitude, and it was fine and sunny well before we got to the Atiwhakatu track for the walk out. For Sharon and I this was our first trip to the Tararua tops and we left hungry for more — even if by some accounts they’re not always as clear and windless as we found them on Saturday.
Ruth Parnell Cloud boiling over the Holdswbrth/Jumbo ridge
Ruth Parnell
Holdsworth Trig
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Mountain House
Trip Reports