This text was read by OCR from a scanned newsletter and has not been proofread yet, so expect odd characters and mistakes.
by Judy Gardner
How odd a spotlight on the track, no owner in sight and a few river bends later a pair of boots, a pair of legs attached to the boots and a comatose body and head attached to the legs. This could only happen in the Ureweras. The description on the trip schedule had read something about ‘making our way to and from Casino Bivvy via river valleys. Casino Bivvy sounded like a pretty cool name and a ‘google’ search said something about the river valleys being like the river valleys in the Tararuas, that sounded pretty good to me. Perhaps my suspicions should have been aroused when only three of us, Peter McKellar, leader and GPS expert, Pete Goodwin and I signed up for the trip. We started the trip by walking up a forestry road and were quick to accept the offer on the oily and dirty tray of a forestry worker’s ute. All three of us managed to hang on and were safely delivered to the beginning of the track into the Mangmako Valley.
Once in, what we thought was the Mangamako River we strode off purposefully up the river. The valley seemed kind of closed in and there were many log jams, the stinging nettle was wall to wall and the there was little water in the Mangamako. After an hour we stopped for a rest, Peter Mc. got his GPS out and after a moment or two looked a little sheepish as he declared, ‘ we have been going up a side stream’. Three people with over 114 years tramping experience and we had not read the map properly.
Back tracking we reached the Mangamako and made good progress until we were halted by Peter Mc. spotting a pair of boots with a comatose person extending out of them. All three of us peered down at the guy and after some shouting we cajoled him into waking up. Weka, the guy’s name, confessed that he and his mate had come in early started drinking vodka as they wandered up the track. He had collapsed and his mate had left him lying under the trees. Some mate! As it was raining we convinced Weka to walk with us up to the hut. Where the track left the river bank to ascend the steepish hillside to the hut they was the most incredible stench, Weka declared, ‘oh yeah I came in about six weeks ago and my horse stumbled and fell down the bank landing dead in the river. His mate was in the hut boiling up sausages and spuds in an aluminum ‘hut pot’. He put the sausages and potatoes between to slices of bread and swilled it down with vodka from the drink bottle.
After lunch we went up the vailey missed the turn-off to Casino Bivvy, backtracked again and finally arrived at the Bivvy eight hours after leaving the road-end. Standing on the verandah of Casino Bivvy the mist spilled over and around the interlocking hills. Giant podocarps stood all around and the loo featured prominently in the foreground. Perhaps DoC could do with some landscaping lessons. Casino Bivvy was nothing flash but a welcome shelter as the rain pattered on the roof all night.
Careful to avoid any further navigation mistakes we made our way cautiously down the Waihuia, checking both the map and the GPS. In the two hours down to the next hut we saw five groups of whio (blue ducks) and one of these had five ducks in it. After lunch we left the main valley went up a side valley until we spotted the track. Climbed up into the mist and along the ridge, carefully placed along the track were stoat and opossum traps. The traps probably explained the reason for the whio. More careful navigation at the boundary between the National Park and the forestry land, we wondered if people really wanted us to come into this part of the world. Although we had not lost the way once it was eight hours before we arrived at the road-end and while waiting for our ride a helicopter flew low over the surrounding hills defoliating marijuana plants. Ah well we were in the Ureweras — anything can happen. By the way the river valleys are not like the Tararua river valleys.