The
Tararuas
15 February, 2000
In April Deb is going to Australia for a week. It's for a conference for her work. I've arranged for my parents to look after Matthew for that week. Which means, as I said to my friend Bill over coffee today, that we're going tramping that week!
As soon as I told him Deb was away for a week, I could see his eyes light up. As I mentioned that my parents could look after Matthew, he was practically rubbing his hands together with glee. As I started to ask whether he could get time off work, he was pondering what route we'd take on the tramp. I think he wants to go as much as I do.
He's the guy in the tramping pictures I've just posted in the pictures section of the site. We're both feeling really unfit now, so we've got two months to get in shape. It helps me when I've got a goal like this to focus on. I need something to imagine when I'm out jogging. I'm not really a runner for running's sake.
I was probably 14 when I did my first tramp. I was in Sea Scouts, and one of the leaders there was a tramper. He took four of us with him, and his dog. We went into the Tararua mountains — where the pictures are from. Where I've done most of my tramping. We started at Walls Whare, and walked the first night to Totara Flats. We stayed in the old hut there. It was demolished years ago. When we lay down on the flat, open, wooden sleeping space, we could see the bellies of the rats through the holes in the ceiling. They scurried around the hut at night, running between our bodies and around the packs. The next day we climbed up to Cone Ridge, and then dropped down to Neil Forks, a lovely six-person hut nestled beside a small river.
The third day we travelled down the Neil river. Straight down the river. When we reached a big deep part of the river, the leader, Clarke, just jumped in and started swimming with his pack on his back. We all followed, cold and shivering until we found a sunny spot to warm up again. The river flowed into the Waiohine river, one of the biggest in the Tararuas. We swam aways down that, until we climbed up to an old sidle track and followed that back down to Totara Flats again. That night we all slept in a small tent. Dog and all. It was so cramped whenever one person rolled over, we all followed suit. The last day we tramped back out to Walls Whare.
I was immediately and utterly hooked by the whole experience. I went tramping as often as I could for the next few years. Once, sometimes twice, a year, doing big 8-10 days trips in the South Island. North-west Nelson Forest Park, Arthur's Pass National Park. It's a different scenery in the South Island. The mountains are higher, the spaces more open, the scale bigger.
But I've always gone back to the Tararuas. I've no idea how many tramps I've been on there. I certainly haven't covered the whole area, but I've been to a lot of it. It's rugged country, rising up to just over 5,000 ft. The bushline is about 3,000 ft. The weather's extremely changeable. If you're going into the heart of the range, you need to know what you're doing. People have died of hypothermia, or gotten lost and fallen over bluffs.
But I can just about paint a picture of the range in my mind. The names of peaks, or huts, or rivers like talismans, inspiration when you're sitting at a desk typing. Dundas, Park forks, Maungahuka, the Tararua peaks, the Otaki river, Neil-Winchcombe ridge, the Broken Axe pinnacles, Dorset ridge hut, Mitre peak, Ruamahunga river … Just reciting the names stirs memories and desires.
I think as you get older you appreciate being able to walk in country like that more. The cliché that it's not so much the destination as the journey becomes more relevant. You don't know when you'll next be back, so you savour each moment more intensely.
I should probably print that last paragraph out and take it with me. When I'm exhausted, only halfway up a hill, I'll it out and read it. I'll laugh at myself and go back to slogging up the hill. Wanting only for the climb to end, and the savouring to finish.
I'm going to enjoy this tramp.