This text was read by OCR from a scanned newsletter and has not been proofread yet, so expect odd characters and mistakes.
by Bronwyn Bell Asmall group of 5 of us clubbies who either weren't fast enough to put our names on the Easter trips for down south or were saving our pennies for other trips, decided that we'd have a cheap n' cheerful Easter tramp in the Tararua's. The area we'd chosen to tramp in is traditionally classed as an E or EM area, however, being the inventive and diverse party we were, decided we would taylor our trip to suit all grades of tramping fitness, because that's what the group consisted of - E, EM, M, MF and a new grade, UF - Uber Fit. Friday was the cruisey day, we left Wellington at 10.30am heading for the Mt. Holdsworth area, with the essential stop off at the fabulous Turkish restaurant in Carterton for their divine chocolate cake and a coffee (the kebabs and soup are great too - for future reference for any of you passing through Carterton). Had a light lunch in the Holdsworth parking lot, which was packed full of Easter weekend trampers and campers and day walkers etc. Then geared up for our stroll to Atiwhakatu hut, up the Donnelly Flats. Weather was sunny, warm and barely even breezey. Most unusual for the Tararua's at Easter time apparently. Our party was sort of 2 party's, so the 3 of us in the one 1/2 of the party got to Atiwhakatu in 1.40minutes, and !o and behold, an empty hut?! At Easter? I was expecting 3 families with a hoard of children. As luck should have it, I guess they were all at Powell Hut. So, we dropped our packs and decided to check the trail out a bit further up towards our next days destination (Mitre Flats Hut) and then decided to take the river back to Atiwhakatu. By the time we got back the other 1/2 of our party had reached the hut, and 2 other trampers as well. Luckily there was enough space for all of us, as Atiwhakatu is an 8 bunker. Since the weather was still nice, we decided to cook outside before it got too dark. Then the night fell and we all made our way into our cocoons for the night. Next morning, definite autumn chill in the air, more sun and blue sky, a few clouds, nothing too serious looking though. The 3 of us in the one 1/2 of the party set off 1st, on the track to Mitre Flats Hut. Which keeps following the Atiwhakatu river which veers off not far from one of the turn offs to Jumbo hut (there are several, plus a turn off to Baldy & the Broken Axe pinnacles). Then the track to Mitre Flats continues going up and around and sidling and through and over and down... typical Tararuas bush track, nothing too taxing except for this one gorgey bit that's fairly overgrown. 4&1/2 hrs later at a good M pace, we arrived at Mitre Flats hut in time for lunch, along with several other parties of trampers arriving at the same time - which prompted Marie Henderson and I to put up our so called selfish, anti-social one person tents. Though we kept our stuff on a couple of matresses for the other 1/2 of the party because we thought they might want beds being the E/EM's of the trip. So, fed and refreshed and with some time on our hands, Marie Henderson being the MF (UF) of the trip, decided that we, with me being the M training to be MF (UF) tramper, should go for a jaunt up Mitre peak. Well, at least as far as we could get so we wouldn't have to come back in the dark. We made it up to about 1200m or so and back down to the hut (380m) in the 3 hrs of light that we had left. While the other Marie (Smith) relaxed in the hut. By the time we'd gotten back down and cleaned up a bit, the other 1/2 of the party had arrived at the hut, along with even more people, so were happy that we'd graciously saved them a couple of beds. Once again the weather was quite nice, so we opted to cook dinner out on the porch, even though there's 3 gas stoves in the hut. We thought we'd rather burn our own fuel and have less to carry out. While dinner was cooking, some other trampers in the hut were busy breaking up fire wood, and lucky for them, I had my handy tramping saw (a wire saw with rings on either end), which the wood gatherers all enjoyed a turn with till one of them got too enthusiastic an broke it,
but kindly gave me § to replace it. Note - tramping saws are good, but should be used according to the instructions. Sunday morning arrived clearish and very coolish, both Marie H and I had condensation inside of our little tents, 1st time for both of us as our tents are both new from last spring. I was rather surprised considering I'd been through 16hrs of rain with my little tent just 3 weeks before... I guess that's the power of colder air and condensation for you. We'd decided sort of, the previous evening, that we would take another route out to get to the cars parked at holdsworth. Marie H and I, being the MF (UF) and MF (UF) in training, were elected to be the scouts, and go fetch the cars, to come back and pick the others up at the Pines/Waingawa road end which is a fair bit easier/shorter than going back the same way to Holdsworth road end. We'd heard from a couple of other trampers in the hut that there was a pipe bridge up the Pines road that you could cross to get to the Holdsworth road, which would mean about 10kms of road walking in total. It looked do-able by the map also. It also looked like there were other routes you could take, but they might involve bush bashing and if we were going to get to the cars in good time, we didn't want to waste any time in unknown territory. So we set off on the Barra track towards the Pines rd end, 2.15hrs later we hit the rd end, great track - apparently takes normal people 4hrs. Then the road march started. We'd marched about 3 or 4kms when a nice couple of locals picked us up and took us right to the place they knew we could cross about 50m or so up from the pipe bridge because they knew that you can't cross the pipe bridge. The spot to cross is where the Waingawa river meets the Atiwhakatu stream (follows Holdsworth rd). We had about a 5 or 6km march to the Holdsworth parking lot. In total it took us 4hrs to get from Mitre Hut to Holdsworth rd end, which is rather fast, I'm sure some trampers out there could do it even faster (without a 15-20kg pack maybe), hence coming up with the term Uber Fit. It's kind of a mix of fitnesses, based on mind set more so than any real level of fitness... Marie H and I managed to have some lunch and clean ourselves up before driving around to fetch the others at the Pines rd end. When we got there, they had just finished their lunches and we're very grateful and happy to see us, with their cars. Marie S still had a package of marshmallow easter eggs left which she gave to the trampers from Auckland who were waiting for their taxi. On the way back to Wellington, we had our compulsory stop at the Turkish restaurant in Carterton for more divine chocolate cake and coffee (well that's what I had anyways). Punters on trip were Bronwyn Bell, Marie Henderson, Marie Smith, Constanze Shwind and Christian Hoerning.