Turere stream - again

Other members of the team at work are covering the phones for the Easter weekend, so I figure I can slip away for a local overnight trip.  I've always had a bit of a soft spot for the Turere Stream, starting from reading a TTC report on a trip to a waterfall that was marked in the wrong place on the map.  I've visited the waterfall a couple of times subsequently, most recently in August 2020. 

What:    Local overnighter

Where:  Orongorongo - Turere Stream

When:   4 April 2021

Who:     Solo 

The trip plan is to bash up Skerret's Stream, pop over the ridge to follow Turere Stream all the way down to the Orongorongo River.  Pop up river to Whakanui Creek and follow it to its headwaters and back out via the Whakanui track.

Overnight pack and 'don't shoot me' vest

The support crew drops me at the end of Sunny Grove around 11am and I follow the track up to Skerrets Creek before leaving it to follow the creek.  There are some remains of old water supply infrastructure in the creek bed - interesting given how long the Wainuiomata and Orongorongo water supply sources have been established.  

There's a waterfall marked on a side stream so I pop up for a look - somewhat underwhelming but only 20 minutes from the road and a short diversion. 

A little while later I find some bits of metal near the creek - I've heard that there are the remains of a steam engine in here and assume this is part of the remains washing down, I don't see anything bigger but understand that it is there to be found.  

The creek gets smaller and more scrambly, until I eventually leave it to clamber up through scrub and regenerating bush to the ridgeline.  I think I ended up on the true right spur between the marked headwater creeks.  I didn't note any signs of other traffic so there may be an easier route than mine.  It's 12.35 when I join the McKerrow Track.

McKerrow Track

I don't follow it though - just cross and start dropping on a spur into the Turere headwaters.   

First contact with the Turere

It's not too bad travel down stream, there's a few log jambs to negotiate but I keep my boots dry.  

Log jamb at 1.30pm

Soon I'm in familiar territory from the last trip - still with dry feet. 

 

There's a bit of a cascade which can be scrambled on the true right but it's a bit sketchy and probably best to take the hit of a waist deep wade on the left through the pool.  After that, the big slip and tree trunks in the stream indicate the main waterfall is close. At 2.50 I round the corner to see the water disappearing through the slot and over the edge.

It takes a little under 10 minutes to scramble up the true right and follow a ground trail down to drop down a slippery wee slope to the stream below the falls.  There's a wee cairn in the stream to mark the spot.  10 minutes after that I pass where we joined the stream last time.  It's new territory now, but uneventful - it's standard stream travel to arrive at the bent bridge around 5.40.  It's taken about 5 hours from the top to bottom of the catchment. 

The afternoon sun is throwing golden light on the face of the Remutaka Range across the Orongorongo River reminding me that I will need to be thinking about finding a camping spot soon.  

As I head up river on Big Bend Track I'm forcefully reminded that it is Easter.  There are two 4WDs visible across the river and the sounds of different family groups drift up from the river bed.  I quickly discard the idea of seeing if there is a spare bed at Turere Lodge and head on in the rapidly gathering twilight.

It's dark by the time I get to Whakanui stream - I follow the Whakanui track a short way then head towards the stream and find a flat spot to pitch 'the coffin' (so named because it is slightly more spacious then the body bag (bivvy bag) - but I'm regretting not packing the fly).  

 

Home for the night

I'm a little disappointed that rather than hearing Kiwi in the night, I can hear people at one of the private huts a little way off in the bush. 

In daylight I discover that I am not far off the track and have found one of the few suitable flat spots.  I get away a little after 8 to see where the Whakanui Creek will take me.

There are a few scrambles and it strikes me as being closer and greener than the Turere Stream.  My notes record a junction about 2 hours upstream and a wee water fall that requires a bit of scrambling up a mossy log after 3 hr 35.   

A bit of a scramble - about an 2 hour 50 upstream

A slightly more tricky one

The stream narrows and I keep following it.  Towards the top of the catchment it gets a little hard to work out which is the most significant fork and there are a couple of spots where I have to leave the water to climb up the side.  They creek is barely a trickle when I take a bearing and head for the ridge - in the process of which I stumble on another wee headwater trickle between me and the saddle (so I think I must have been on the eastern of the three branches marked).  

After a steep wee scramble I emerge on the ridge close to the saddle. It's 12.35 and it's taken about four and a half hours to navigate the catchment.  It's cool and claggy so I keep moving.

I take the track from pt 644 to Nikau Stream arriving at the bottom at 2.10 and the car park by 2.20.  A good use of a day and a half in the local bush and it got me out of the house.

Turere stream daytrip

This is a trip from a couple of years back - in the times before I got sucked into working in the great COVID machine.  There are a few others on the drawing board from around that time that I haven't quite got around to tidying up .... 

Another weekend with just time for a day trip.  This time Mike is too slow to find an excuse and is roped in alongside Angela.  

Using the same old map as last time, the plan is to visit a waterfall on the Turere stream in the hills between Wainuiomata and the Orongorongo Valley.

The waterfall came to my attention by accident some time ago when trawling through TTC trip reports. Someone had identified that the waterfall was marked in the wrong place on the map (downstream) and had taken a trip to visit its correct location - it has been subsequently moved (on the map that is).

Our starting point is a track up a spur by Nikau Stream.  It's shown on the old map and I vaguely recall coming down it in the dark so have absolutely zero confidence of finding it again. 

What:    Navigation day trip
Where:  Turere Stream 
When:   30 August 2020
Who:     Mike, Angela and me

About 8.15 we leave the car at the end of Hine street and head across the field to Nikau Stream.  A pause at the map board where the team estimates how far up Nikau stream before we look for the old track hiving up the side of the gully - about 12 minutes is the consensus assuming a leisurely 2 km/hr.

The regen bush in the gully is cool, manuka is being topped out with the exception of some big old specimens.  

After (fairly close to) 12 minutes a faint path looks like it heads left, closer inspection reveals an old mossy cairn and piece of faded tape.  We follow to where it ducks across the stream and starts scrambling upwards.  It looks familiar - but when I came through here in the opposite direction it was pitch black after a long day.

The track takes us up to the spur where a good foot trail with markers heads on up. About 400m past pt 492, just before the spur steepens, the old map shows a sidle track heading south around the hill side.  We can see a foot trail so follow it.

It's rough but a good wee bench for a short stretch - until we hit the first tree fall. After that it's pretty variable - in and out of gullies, quite a few large treefalls and our time estimates blow out. The odd marker and section of benching confirms we are in the right vicinity. Eventually we reach a spot where we can duck a short way up to the crest of the ridge and the modern track.  Not a recommended diversion. 

Angela notices a sticky damp spot on her trousers which, on closer inspection proves to be blood not sap. A closer look reveals blood on hands and other places but no obvious source. A quick down trou determines that the blood is from a tidy hole in her leg, probably from bush lawyer.  

We should be near an intersection with one of the routes to our ridge so head in the most obvious direction to find it (right).  It doesn't turn up so we return and continue up to where we know our ridge track starts (looking at Angela's Strava log later we must have stopped metres from the intersection).

At the top we join the Whakanui track (west) and head south along a long flat topped ridge through pretty goblin forest. 

After a while the newer sidle track joins from our right - and our first and only other tramper for the day potters into sight from down ridge.  He's spent the night by the river and is heading out again.  

This section of ridge is flat and long so we are keeping an eye on the clock to estimate when we will need to start looking for a point to drop west to the stream valley below.  We're close when the track breaks into an area of dead trees and regrowth - it allows the sun in and gives us views across to the opposite ridge.  It also allows a stiff cool breeze in but it is the perfect spot for lunch.

After lunch, and Mike stepping up to the Jelly bean challenge (in a blind taste he guessed the colour of most correctly), we take bearings off a couple of bumps on the opposite ridge.  Much to everyone's surprise the bearings meet at one point on our ridge, giving us an accurate fix.  

It's surprising how seldom this technique is useful as it relies on: a break in the canopy, no clag, identifiable point(s) roughly parallel to the feature you're on, those points being not so far away that they're on a different map or you can't draw an accurate line from them on the map.

Happy that we know where we are, we potter down trail, and back into forest. The ridge top broadens for a bit before we reach a junction of sorts where markings indicate a route down an obvious spur above our target waterfall - we want to arrive below the falls so continue on the track.

The map shows the track going over some knobs on the ridge but these are not really apparent.  We know we're about in the right place so strike west and scramble down a steep face through messy bush. It gets a bit hairy at the bottom navigating a bit of a loose face but we get to the stream edge in the end.

Angela negotiates the last few meters ...

... with moral support

Regrouping, we head up the respectably sized Turere Stream.  A few bends later we reach the base of the falls - it's not the most picturesque spot but the water cascades over a bit of a drop into a greenish pool.

Men with sticks

We want to continue up valley but there's no climbing the water fall or up the sides near it - we retreat to the first side stream (true left) and find a cairn opposite it.  Sure enough there is a steep scramble up the true right onto a spur which we follow up to drop over the other side, just upstream of the waterfall. 

Waterfalls are nowhere near as interesting from the top so there's not much point hanging around here.  Shortly upstream there's an impressive and recent erosion scar on the true right - the different ages of surrounding bush indicating it's not the first in this spot. 

The stream is a good size and wide enough that it's a pretty straight forward ramble most of the time, barring the odd log jamb.  There's also a few cascades - I climb around these in the interests of dry feet while Mike and Angela elect for the safer but wetter direct approach (mid-rift for Mike and chest high for Angela) .

About 3.30 we figure we could head up stream for a little longer but note that the spurs on the true right for the next kilometre all reach the ridge at the same point - i.e. we may as well head up now.

We clamber onto the chosen spur.  There's little sign of a trail for a start but after a while we start seeing the odd piece of old old tape then a faint foot trail.  This gets stronger as we climb with marking at strong side spurs. Towards the top there are traps, tunnels and we're obvious in an actively managed area.

Soon enough we pop out on to the McKerrow track.  Wainuiomata is already losing the late afternoon sun - hills fade to the horizon and although we can pick out the South Island, the air is so hazy we can't even see any details on the Hutt hills.

Mike pauses to check face book and we potter along the wide albeit a bit muddy track.  

Ignoring the route down to the Boys Brigade camp (and possibly access to Sunny Grove) we follow the main, and very large, benched track that drops us all the way back to the car right on the edge of dark.

Another good day in the local hills.  From subsequent visits I've found that Turere Stream changes noticeably as logs move and shingle backs up behind the jambs.  And the TTC website notes that there are lots more wee waterfalls in the surrounding creeks - so there's plenty more scope for exploring.