2 December 2024
Seven of us set off from Hasting at 7am heading to the end of Mill road as Kashmir road was meant to be closed due to logging, so we had decided to make the trip to Daphne hut by walking up the Tukituki river. We parked the club van at the end of Mill road near the DOC signs marking the entrance which is on farm land.
We start walking just before 8:40 am and headed off down to the Tukituki river via the track, about 50 meters in you have to cross the face of a slip, some of the members were unsure about trying to do so and instead opted to headed down the slip via a gravelly dirt sort of scree-slope down into the valley, and upon reaching a stream at the bottom followed that along where it connects back up the track shortly afterwards. Back on the track you initially pass though scrub and the track isn’t well marked for the direction you are meant to take, we tried to stick to the true right of the river but still ended up having to push through quite a lot of scrub to reach the Tukituki river itself.
The last time I had been this way was pre cyclone Gabriel, and while the initial part hadn’t changed, as soon as we hit the river it became apparent how much had changed. The lower parts of the river were now extremely flat with the river within a single channel and next to no vegetation growing within the river banks meaning we were able to make quick progress up river. It was a very warm and humid day, we had a couple of very light showers, thankfully not enough to justify the need to put on raincoats, which with the humidity would have probably been pointless anyway.
As we headed upwards the river started to narrow and the large gravel banks grew less frequent and larger rocks appeared with larger boulders starting to make their appearance but nothing that prevented progress upriver. We reached the turn off for the Rosvalls track up to Tarn Bivvy after about 1 hour 20 mins, previously there had been a reasonably sized grass area at the bottom of the hill, this had just about all been washed away. Continuing upriver we started to encounter a few large dead trees that had been washed into the river but thankfully all avoidable and once again not impeding our progress.
About 500 meters downstream of where the river meets the track into Daphne hut via the Moorcock Road entrance we encountered a very large slip. You could see where a section of the hill had fallen into the river bringing a large amount of dirt and gravel into the river and the river looks like it was probably briefly blocked off after it had come down, this had us clambering up the side of the gravel bank to continue onwards. We arrived at Daphne Hut just before 12:30 pm just in time to stop for a much deserved lunch.
After lunch we headed back out the way we came with the temperate climbing as the afternoon progressed. For our final climb out of the valley and back up to the van it was decided we would try to go back up the slip we came down. This proved tougher than a few members expected with the slip being rather steep with generally poor footing and with nothing to grab onto for extra support. Thankfully we eventually made it to the top of the slip and arrived back at the van at 4:40pm, 8 hours after we first started.
Party: Anton D, Colin J, Jude H, Marie, Nic W, Simon W, Steve B.