My plan for the weekend was to do another tramp in the Tararuas. I went into the hike pretty open minded with several options of where to finish, although I started at the Kaitoke entrance which is near Upper Hutt. To get there I used public transport as far as I could to Te Marua before hitching the last 10km. The walk I was looking at was the Southern Crossing which goes from Kaitoke to Otaki Forks, effectively a traverse from the east side of the mountains to the west side, although I wanted to include the summit of Maungahuka in the weekend which effectively gave me a choice of finishing at Otaki Forks on an alternative route, Waiohine Gorge, or back to Kaitoke. It's always good to go in open minded as you never know what could happen.
From Kaitoke it wasn't long before I started heading upwards, traversing through scrub to reach the Marchant Ridge. The final climb to the ridge was very steep although when on the ridge I bobbled between about 900m and 1100m so there wasn't too much serious climbing once I was up. The ridge had a variety of a scrubland and forest to walk through. There were even the occasional views too which was nice. Eventually I reached the 1118m summit of Omega, where I made a steep descent to the saddle at Hells Gate before making a steep ascent back up to reach Alpha Hut which is where I had lunch. Not long after leaving the hut I left the forest and headed through the open tussocks to the 1361m summit of Alpha. The views were stunning with the Hutt Valley and Wellington Harbour, the Wairarapa, and even the South Island visible.
The next section of the walk was in the complete open and unlike Holdsworth it was a lovely day with clear skies and no wind! I soon reached the 1376m summit of Aston which presented me with additional views of the Kapiti coastline, with the island visible. I continued in the open tussocks on the undulating ridge, bagging the 1472m, 1485m, and 1519m summits of Atkinson, Beehive, and Mount Hector along the way. After climbing the 1483m summit of Field Peak I reached Kime Hut which is where I made the decision to head out to continue to Maungahuka, with a good 4 hours daylight left to play with to get there. Interestingly my progress was so good I could have completed the southern crossing in a day if I wanted to, the walk advertised as taking 2-3 days.
The ridge to Maungahuka was incredibly undulating and I summited another 4 peaks along the way. I then reached the infamous peaks of Tuiti and Tunui which was the most challenging part of the day. The peaks were very jagged, and rock climbing was required to ascend and descend a few of the rock faces before I eventually reached a cliff edge which had a rope attached to the edge to traverse along the edge. I then reached the steel ladder, which was 30m descent down a cliff with a very big drop beyond that. I then had a few more ropes to negotiate to get down to more safe land. Once I had negotiated that particularly scary part of the walk I soon reached Maungahuka Hut, my bed for the night! There was another English guy there as well so I had someone to talk to, who had actually done an identical walk to what I had done to get there.
In the morning the other guy left pretty early as he was heading out for a big day. The night before I decided I would attempt to return to Kaitoke via the Cone Ridge and Smiths Creek back to where I started. The morning was a little overcast but very mild so I set off relatively early too despite the poor visibility. The plan was to get to the Cone Ridge which essentially required me to drop from about 1300m to the Hector River at 400m, before climbing back up to the summit of Cone at 1100m. It didn't go to plan however, as after following the ridge I soon returned into the forest and before long lost the path and couldn't locate it again. Luckily I knew my vague location so I decided the best bet was to head down to the river and follow that until I found this swing bridge. That was easier said than done as I had to battle through thick forest on a pretty steep decline. I fell several times and was only saved from dieing by the thick growth stopping my falls.
When finally reaching the river I was pretty broken physically but I continued on along the the river which was essentially a series of waterfalls which I had to decend. It was very slipperly and I had no choice but to gingerly use the slipperly rocks to get down, and in some places I had to climb up the bank to avoid getting swept away. The river eventually joined a larger one which was more like a gorge presenting new challenges including river crossings. I fell in a couple of times but managed to use the rocks to avoid getting swept downstream, although there were some sections which were strong rapids and I had to climb up the gorge edges using trees and my upper body strength to avoid them. I eventually found the swing bridge and the Neill Forks Hut which finally put me back on track! The detour cost me about 3 hours though so put me quite a bit behind schedule.
From the hut it was a steep incline up to the Cone Ridge although en route part of the path gave way and I had a pretty awkward fall down the bank into some trees. This hurt my right leg but I continued on without any problems to the ridge, eventually reaching the summit of Cone outside of the forest, getting some great views in the process. From here I made a decision to finish at the Waiohine Gorge instead of Kaitoke as I was pretty broken and this cut a substantial amount of distance off, as long as I could get a lift out to the main road from the gorge. The descent was quite painful on my damaged leg which I couldn't bend without experiencing pain. I eventually made it down to the Waiohine Gorge where luckily I got a lift out to the main road, followed by another lift back into the Hutt. All in all it was a stunning walk but the second day taught me a lot as well as using all my experience to get out of what could have been a more serious situation.
Monday morning was Christmas day, although Joss didn't come home until about 11 from his Dad's which gave me a much needed lie in and chance to relax. When Joss returned it wasn't long before we were in the lounge opening presents and even I got some presents which was nice! Joss was very spoilt! For lunch we had ham sandwiches as Liza had bought a big ham. Throughout the afternoon we played with Joss's toys and did some baking, including a yummy pavlova. We even had time to go for a swim in the pool although it was a little cold as much of the day it was raining. It's what Joss wanted though! It was a really nice and chilled out day all in all but it was nice to spent it with people instead of being alone.
The following day was Joss's birthday, which meant even more presents! The weather though was awful and there was very heavy downpours! In that period of heavy rain there was more rain in that couple of hours than the previous 48 days combined. For lunch Joss went out with his Dad for a couple of hours, which gave me a chance to relax before the afternoon. Joss wanted to go in the pool in the afternoon although the weather stopped us, so we did some more baking and played with his new toys, as well as starting a game of farmopoly which went into a second day! Wednesday was another pretty chilled out day as the weather still wasn't great although that did mean we could finish our game of farmopoly which I unfortunately lost in the end which was frustrating. Joss went round his Dad's in the afternoon for a couple of nights which gave a chance to tidy the house up a bit which was covered in Joss's toys and rubbish, as well as walking Max.
Joss was round his Dad's all day on Thursday to return home Friday morning. This gave me an unexpected day off so I decided to pop into Wellington and do a walk along the coast round Shelley Bay to Scorching Bay via the lighthouse at Point Halswell, before continuing to Lyall Bay and the airport via Moa Point. It was a very nice walk, but a little windy! My right leg was playing up by the end so the weekend has definitely done me some damage there. In the afternoon I had a look round the shops at the Christmas sales, and I ended up buying a tent which hopefully will be a pretty good investment and save me a fair bit of money on the long term. On the Friday Joss came home in the morning as his Dad was going to Tango in Taupo for new years. We therefore went into Wellington as it was such a nice day and went for a walk along the harbour, stopping for lunch at one of the restaurants on the waterfront.
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