Ohau River

Ohau river - Te Araroa track skirts part of the catchment and it is a traditional gateway from the west into the heart of the northern Tararuas.  There are a couple of huts in the headwaters that I want to visit but have tended to steer clear as solo river travel doesn't strike me as the smartest survival strategy.

This time however, Rodger has posted a Meet-up trip to Te Matawai hut via Gable End. The weather is uncharacteristically settled (in a good way) and I figure we can share transport. My plan is to meet him at the hut in the evening having found my way there via North Ohau hut and the ridge to Girdlestone saddle.

What:    Meet-up trip to Te Matawai hut
Where:  North Western Tararuas behind Levin
Why:     Explore Ohau River, huts in the catchment and Girdlestone saddle
Who:     Rodger, Scott and me
When:   Weekend 17-18 June 2017
Map:     Map

Scott has also signed up for the trip so I pick him up Saturday morning and we hook up with Rodger in Tawa to travel to the (now very familiar) Poads Road end.  With three to organise it is a bit after 10 when we finally kick off on a sunny morning.  We head across cattle churned river terrace paddocks to the gorge.

The pace is fairly leisurely so it's about 11.20 when we reach the bottom of the Gable End track. Scott is keen to see North Ohau hut so we agree that I'll visit South Ohau today and we'll all exit via North Ohau tomorrow.

Route to the river is unmissable - bottom of Gable End

Rivers are generally best avoided - what with drowning, slippery boulders and the a generally slower pace of travel. However, today I have a walking pole and fear nothing.

The river is at normal flow and clear apart from the deeper pools which have that cool blue/green tint. The sun catches the wider flats and progress is pretty good, seeing me at the junction between the north and south branches in a bit over half an hour. Apparently trampers have missed the branch in the dark and ended up at the north instead of south hut - in daylight however navigation is pretty straight forward and I don't note any side streams that might cause confusion.

North Ohau to left, South to right - foot of Deception Spur between

The flow is much lower above the forks and the river bed a bit tighter in places, but it's still good travel and very pretty. At one point a pink ribbon looks like it marks a short cut across a terrace but turns out to lead to a polythene bivvy - complete with a couple of plastic garden chairs.




Old timer biv

It looks like two someones have been in before me - a pair of foot prints precede me up river and look to be fairly fresh.  On some of the straight stretches of river the winter sun on my back is as strong as you get it at this time of year.

About 1.10 I'm at South Ohau hut for a bite to eat. It's getting the sun but I suspect for not much longer - in summer it would have a very pleasant aspect for a comfortable evening on the deck.

South Ohau hut - Butchers Creek enters from right,
South Ohau comes from left (route to Girdlestone saddle) 

The hut is clean and tidy and, with the sum streaming in, exceedingly pleasant. A couple of chaps have signed through the log book last night - it looks like they have come in by torchlight and headed up to Te Matawai for the night before embarking on the northern crossing.

After a quarter hour break and a deep breath I gird my loins for the steep grunt upwards. Yeates track leaves from behind the hut and climbs straight up the spur for about 300m before leveling. Along the top there's a fair amount of wind thrown trees giving a few views across to the ridge that Rodger and Scottt are sweating up.

In about 45 minutes I reach the junction with Dora Track (Te Araroa) and turn left to reach Te Matawai hut in 20 minutes. All up about 4 hours 20 from the car (and I reckon you could trim a bit off that).

Pt 810 

At Te Matawai you can see up to the main range, or at least the bits not covered in cloud. Pukematawai is hidden and there's not much sun to be had for the rest of the day. The inside of the hut is decidedly cool.

Te Matawai in its normal attire

The experience of being at a hut in the mid-afternoon with no more tramping for the day is weird. I potter around and get myself thoroughly cold before finally having the sense to get out of river sodden boots and into dry clothes and sleeping bag for a snooze. This keeps boredom at bay for a while, and a hot drink for a little while longer.

There's a good stack of fire wood so I undertake another unusual activity and get a fire going. I wouldn't bother on my own but figure Scott and Rodger might be late and cold.

Reading the log book passes a bit more time - some pages are 80% Te Araroa walkers south bound (SOBO) or north (NOBO) - not so much during winter though.

It's just on dark around 5pm that Scott and Rodger wander in. The grunt up Gable was not so bad but the ridge was fairly muddy and the route from there a bit up and down. They settle in and we prepare our respective meals - Rodger takes over the fire and keeps it going all evening - maybe something to do with everyone having three season sleeping bags.

I'm first up in the morning and reasonably keen to get going as I anticipate that we might be pushing light by the end of the day. At this point the down side of using the fire kicks in in the shape of the two chores; dousing and disposing of the ashes, and getting more wood. I get on with this while the others break their respective fasts.

The day is grey but the cloud is about 1000m so there are views to be had. A helicopter buzzes over the ridge to Pukematawai just below the cloud ceiling and shadows the main range before nipping through a saddle into Park Valley.

It's about 8.40 when we leave the hut and, after about about 3 minutes walking, Scott wipes out in a bog - leggings and gloves are thick with the noisome stuff. The track through here is somewhat soft in a few patches.

Mangahao valley ahead - Girdlestone Saddle to Ohau on left

The scrub gives way to forest as we drop into the saddle, arriving about 0930. The route to South Ohau is well marked but I'm surprised how little ground trail there is leading out of the saddle in the direction we're going (northish along the ridge). There's a bit of casting about required to find the best way through old logs (possibly from the 1936 storm) but it's pretty easy going over a lump in the saddle and then the gradual start to the climb up to Pt 865. Somewhere around here we start seeing markers and the ground trail becomes more pronounced - I suspect there is an old route down to the Mangahao river about 100m below (this would make sense as it would come out opposite Pt 630 at the base of Triangle Spur).

Rodger and Scott contemplate leaving the road most traveled 

Rodger applying walking poles to the defenseless flora

With a breather on the way up it's an easy climb to Pt 865 which marks where Deception Spur comes up from the Ohau forks. There's a cairn and lots of tape marking that route which I mentally add to my list for investigating at some point. We follow the sharp topped ridge north east through open forest for a short climb to find more orange tape marking the top of the spur down to North Ohau hut.

The track down is a bit overgrown but there's a reasonable amount of old markers - without them I suspect it would be easy to lose the way as the shape of the spur is not always obvious.

Scott stops part way down to do arcane things with cell phones and satellites - something to do with the game he was involved in when we went up Hector last year. Rodger and I listen to his explanation about defining a node at the hut and the complicated technology required to capture it because it has no cellphone reception - and understand about one concept in seven.  We leave him to it and head on down.

At the bottom of the spur we stumble on the toilet then the hut - it's about 1.30. The hut loses the sun as we arrive, although the loo is still basking. It's a wee four bunker with a fire - quite damp in the narrow, sunless valley (the deck is lethally slippery) but I imagine pretty cosy once the fire is cranked up.  The hut is on a terrace above the valley bottom with the sounds of the river drifting up.

I'm keen to get going as the map indicates that the river could be a bit gorgy - the more light available while we are traveling the better.

The flats can be followed for a while (albeit boggy) but soon enough we are in the river (well, large stream) slithering over boulders and skirting the deeper pools. It's a steeper and more gorgy river bed then the South Ohau so is slow although not bad going. I wouldn't like to be here if the flow was up.

The sun occasionally lights a hillside above or glances into one of the wider flats but we are mostly hemmed in, in cool, damp air and dim light.

Someone has been through ahead of us - there are wet foot prints on the some of the boulders but in these conditions it is difficult to tell how long they have been there. I am guessing not so long although the person didn't note their presence in the log book.

Scott's boot gives up the ghost and upper separates from lower but not so that we have to actually apply duct tape and he keeps the pace up. It's about an hour twenty to the forks and another hour down river to the large orange triangle that marks the exit near the foot of Gable End.

At 4pm it's getting dim in the bush so we keep a good pace up to hit the farmland as the last of the sun set warms the top of Square knob. On the way back through the paddocks we stop at a large boulder - there's a bronze plaque on it commemorating the Levin Waiopehu tramping club (1927 to 1977), no idea if they still exist - but the plaque will be around for a while.

There's plenty of light to see us across the flats and back to the car but it wouldn't have been long before we would have been cracking out head torches.

Postscript

The Ohau River is a good way to commute into Te Matawai. Probably tricky if the river is up at all but it's pretty and our non-scientific comparison indicates it's quicker. Not much in the way of markers (apart from the exit point on the way out I didn't see any).  A few deepish pools but nothing above mid thigh, and one or two rocky scrambles.

The forks are obvious - I didn't note any side streams that could be confusing. South Ohau hut is obvious above the river - North Ohau not, but I think there was an orange triangle marking the track which follows along and up to the terrace the hut is on.

Yeates track is a steep scramble up at the start but it's over and done with reasonably quickly. The ridge from Girdlestone north had a bit of ground trail but easy to miss and I didn't note any markers until the start of the slope up to Pt 865 where the trail was also more obvious. The spur down to North Ohau would be tricky in low light and is a bit overgrown but there are quite a few tape markers.