24 – 25 January

You hear that it rains a lot in the Tararuas, so when the forecast on YR.com is just a consistent couple of millilitres an hour I didn’t worry too much about it and just made sure to pack a raincoat. Our trip into Roaring Stag Hut in the Northern Tararuas showed why it’s not always that simple.

Seven of us set off from Hastings in sunny warm weather heading for Putara, as we headed south we stuck rain just north of Dannivirke which continued all the way through to just south of Pahiatua, at times leaving me wondering what I had signed us all up for. When we crossed the Mangatainoka River at Mangatainoka it was still a nice clean colour giving some hope of a potential alternative route in via old an track which is only found on the old NZMS1 1979 maps, it would have required us to cross the river and follow it downstream for about 200 meters without bridges, this was quickly abandoned once we arrived in Putara itself where the Mangatainoka river had quickly turned a muddy brown and was doing its best to escape its banks.

We met up with Paul Danny at his farm just before the road end, he would be joining us for the trip, and then parked the Van at a nearly empty car park and set off. We had expected rain on the way in and while there was plenty of evidence of heavy rain the previous night; side streams creating mini water falls, large numbers of deep and boggy puddles (probably permanent features of the area), it never rained on us on our way into the hut. The track does have a number of fallen trees you have to detour around, large numbers of tree roots also meant people generally took their time along the gentle climb alongside the main river, and up the steep climb onto the ridge. 

We stopped for lunch at the T junction at the top of the ridge, which was also the first spot you could charitably call dry. We considered detouring up to Herepai hut but decided to leave it for the next day with the hope of trying to go out the old way with the river levels dropping overnight. The track down to Roaring stag Hut was more of the same, lots of mud and boggy puddles, the weather even warmed up with patches of sunlight breaking through the cloud. 

Paul had taken his fishing rod along with him, at some stage on the way down the line got caught on a tree, leading to Murry and myself at the back of the group wondering what on earth a 200 meter long line of nylon was doing stretched out along side the track until we found the rod lying against a tree finally having fallen out of his pack. There are two small streams just before the hut, and we had no issues crossing them to arrive at the hut after a leisurely 5 hours. About 4 pm it started to rain, lightly and a bit on and off to start with, but the rain had arrived.

As we sat in the hut looking out onto the Ruamahanga river watching it slowly rise, picking various different points on the other side of the river to use as a gauge for how much it had risen, only for them all to eventually be submerged one after the other as the rain continued and increased in intensity. 

The next morning I would guess the river had risen at least 40cm, though thankfully we didn’t have to actually cross it. The two streams we were required to cross were thankfully fairly small and, looking at the maps, didn’t have that large catchment areas so we figured they wouldn’t be an issue. As we left the sun broke through the clouds giving us a rainbow and the final patch to blue sky we would see until we made it back to Hastings later that afternoon. 

The first of the small streams was easy to get across, the second however was more challenging with very strong currents. The wiser of the group went slightly up stream which presented a nicer crossing point, a few of us crossed through a deeper and rather swift patch, in which we were lucky no one actually lost their footing going across. Across the streams it was back into the puddles and bog, the rain never let up the entire way back out, turning the track into a stream itself in many places. Lunch was skipped with people just grabbing quick bites to keep them going, with the consistent rain even the trees provided no shelter. 

When we all finally got to back to the van, 4 and half hours after leaving the hut, everyone was drenched, so we changed into dry clothes as best as possible and decided to go past the Lazy Graze (Paul’s cafe in Eketāhuna) for a hot drink and lunch before making our way back to Hastings.

Party: Nic W, Donna W, Selina C, Lou C, Anton D, Peter Mc, Murry A.

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