Waiohine spot-height mop-up

One thing about deciding to try to visit all the spot heights in the Tararua Forest Park is that your  planning changes completely. Convoluted trips evolve that string together isolated locations which are not on the way from any special A to any particular B.  A side effect is finding yourself in unexpectedly delightful corners  - a case in point being Tait Stream, a lovely accidental 'find' I would not otherwise have thought to visit. Sometimes however, you find that there are very good reasons why no-one apparently bothers going to a place. 

This weekend is a final mop-up around the Waiohine gorge, hopefully picking up 11 spot-heights left behind from previous excursions.  The plan for Saturday is a figure of 8 to be expanded (all going well) into a three lobed loop - a deformed clover if you like.

What:   Navigation day trip

Where: Hills around Waiohine Road end

Who:    Solo

When:  14 October 2017

Why:    Tidy up some loose ends

Ignore the loop on the right - that's Sunday's effort

There are 5 or 6 cars at the temporary(!) car park and, most uncharacteristically, sun on the surrounding hills. I head off about 7am, passing the hole in the access road which shows no sign of repair efforts.

The road may not be fixed anytime soon

The potter up the Cone Saddle track is very familiar now. The sun streaming through the trees - not so familiar but very welcome after this unrelentingly soggy winter. At 7:50ish, where the track levels off towards pt 572, I turn and take a bearing for the spur to 480 (just before I notice the wee bit of ribbon on a track marker that indicates the spot).

Blue skies!

480 spur

The spur shelves gently along and down through tall trunks with a clear under-story. There's a good foot trail but little marking. The odd view of blue skies is a novel experience.

At 480 it takes a bit of casting about to find the spur running east (it probably shouldn't have). I follow this to a hunters camp rotting into the forest, then (with one false start) hook off down a steep side spur above a marked but unnamed creek. The foot trail pretty much disappears and animal trails come and go. Towards the bottom it becomes a steep scramble through mucky bush, but deposits me on the track near the stream as planned. It's about 9:05.

This is the main route through to Totara Flats and fresh foot prints indicate people have been in this morning. I don't see anyone as I amble back to the swing bridge to briefly follow the same stretch of track as this morning to the Cone Saddle track - but this time continuing SSW to cross Coal Stream - with dry feet unlike last time. The first leaf of the clover is complete.

Coal Stream Track - well marked but not official

Where the track levels briefly above the other side of the stream, there are yellow squares on the left indicating a loop track over pt 308. The trail is easy to follow and well marked. There's a nice view of the swing bridge on the way up through open forest. 308 marks the second spot-height for the day. The trail dips through a wee saddle then climbs to meet the main track up towards Mt Reeves again at about 400m. 9:50 and all's well.

The spider's web in centre is perhaps the biggest swing bridge in the Tararuas

Junction at about 400m

Perfect

Things are going well and it's weird to be in warm air - it really has been a miserable winter. I'm humming along and receive a short sharp lesson about paying attention when I take a step up and ram my head into a solid branch. No lasting harm but I have a fair headache for the rest of the day. It's a little bit like biting your tongue - you can't quite believe how stupid you've just been.

The track may not be official but it is well marked with yellow triangles and some old-school tin circles. Some of these have scratches on them including one at about 525m that seems to indicate a turn, but the map just shows a tricky spur down to Coal Stream. Could be worth a look.

How to remember when and where you saw something 

A bit of compass watching and I pick where to leave for pt 668 without having to resort to the altimeter (a lazy practice I am trying to wean myself off). As usual on the more obvious spurs, a bit of ground trail comes and goes. Suddenly I'm looking at a rock face - I clamber up to discover a couple of rocky knobs emerging from the bush. It's a perfect spot on a sunny day and well worth a visit.

Pt 668

Pt 668 - a bit closer



North towards spur above car park

The view at Pt 515

The downside is that they mark the end of mature forest and the start of mixed scrub. The travel is pretty variable and generally a bit better if you hang off into more mature forest on the south side of the ridge. A few gun shots from the valley below have me a bit wary but they stay in the distance. At 515 I mentally tick off the third spot-height and confirm that there is absolutely nothing to see, so retrace my steps to try to find a spur running down towards the river terrace.

There is plenty of pig sign all the way down but they are not very assiduous about forming trails that people can follow, or for sticking to the spur. I crash down through the scrub trying to avoid the thicker patches of gorse. The occasional break gives glimpses across the river to the busy car park.

After struggling down I reach a point where I have to decide whether to go around the next spur or over a small saddle. I figure that direct is better and drop off the spur to the creek below and struggle up the opposite bank.

Part way up I discover the fabled supplejack breeding ground. There's no option but to just scramble through the carnal tangle; stepping on the vines where possible but more often than not getting them caught behind the pack and tangled in gator buckles. The top provides relief and a tantalisingly closer view of the car-park.



Yep - had to get through that



On the map the flats look like forest and from across the river tall trees can be seen. Surely this will be a pleasant wander? It turns into hell. Dense stands of supplejack merge into 3m deep kiekie. Progress is glacial and, as often as not, above the ground until something gives way and you plunge through into dank humus. The odd emergent forest giant does nothing to ease progress.

Yep - had to get through that too

I recheck bearings every 5m or so and struggle through until some clearer land catches my eye to the left. This sees me back in forest with a high canopy closer to the foot of the hill, some very old tape indicates someone has been through and headed off up the hill. I continue towards 308 eventually finding some markers leading to the top and a bit of a lie down.

Pt 308 - Part two 

It's not too late so I head back to the swing bridge (making three trips today on that short stretch of track) - leaf two complete and eying up the third.

A bend in the Waiohine - on the way off 308

On the other side of the Waiohine on the track to the car park I pick a spot and duck north into the bush to follow a terrace above Fern Creek. Last time I tried to find this spur I was a bit too casual and followed the terrace too far - ending up climbing a completely different spur. I got to Mt Dick ok but left two unvisited spot-heights behind (not that I was consciously hunting them at that time).

Since then I have discovered that when I was a nipper the family used to come and camp close to here somewhere. This was when Walls Whare was still there and hordes of unwashed children marauding through the bush frightening the wildlife was considered to be acceptable parenting.

This time there are odd, critically placed markers that indicate where to drop to the creek and cross to climb the spur north. There also seems to be a trail that may head around the base of the spur towards the gorge. I head on up - a little breathless so the long flat section after pt 295 is welcome.

The ground trail is good. I take a short rest at 532 but the wind is getting a bit cool so follow along the ridge and climb to 632 - still on a good ground trail.



Pt 632 - one pt can be pretty much the same as another

 



In theory, 632 is familiar territory but I can't say as I recognise it. The ground trail remains strong barring a bit of uncertainty towards pt 545.  Then it's onto old logging trails and things speed up markedly. So much so that I gallop past my spur and have to back track.

A bit foolishly I get impatient and take what looks like a trail leading down a sharp spur - bad call. It soon degenerates into scrub and regrowth under replanted pines. There's no trail so I eventually drop to the stream and thrash down to the road edge - it would have been quicker to head further back up hill and cast around to find the correct spur which had 4WD tracks on it.

Post script

The spur to 480 is very pleasant travel. There looks to be a better route down a little to the north of the one I took but I was looking for a challenge. The rocky knobs at 668 are well worth a visit - for lunch preferably. The terrace would be worth an explore but I think the best option would be to see where the trail leads to off 308. The old maps indicate a bridge across the Waiohine at that point and there could well be routes along the terrace edge that avoid the tangle in the middle. The terrain close to the base of the hill is also likely to be easier travel.  The hills around Walls Whare have a lot of trails - probably have a lot of hunters too. They're a bit mixed with pines on the margins, some scrubby bits and a lot of not very much view. Not my favourite corner.