21-22 September 2019

Leader: Kate Livingston

It’s quite a long drive to the road end up the Waitotara Valley so we set off at 8.00am on Saturday morning. We regrouped in Whanganui for coffee and food before the final leg of the drive.

From SH3 at Waitotora it’s another 53 kms of narrow and winding road up the Waitotara Valley Road with the last 10 km on the unsealed Taumatatahi Road to the road-end car park. We started walking around 12.15pm. The weather was sunny and windless and that remained the case for the whole weekend.

The first section of the track is a bull-dozed farm road which leads into the narrow and steep sided valley of the Waitorara River. We had a lunch break at the site of the former farm house of the Kapara Station. There is nothing much left of the buildings but evidence of a garden with fruit and chestnut trees, camellia bushes and white lilies. Tony provided some historical background – the farm was run by the Van Asche family from 1894 until 1912 and included a sawmill.

The next section of the track is evidently a former packhorse track. This eventually ceases and turns into a narrow bush track and there are a couple of DOC swing bridges. There are cattle roaming in the area leaving the track in a very muddy condition in places. However, it is basically a flat track (my phone track recorder app indicated around 60m elevation changes) through some very attractive bush.

At one point a cave was spotted but it turned out to be a tunnel which was most likely, Owen surmised, dug out to help drain water from the other side of the small ridge. About 10 minutes before the hut there is a short diversion down to the river’s edge to view the Terereohaupa waterfall – which is quite pretty. Half the group headed down right away and spotted some whio/blue ducks while the rest of us headed on to the hut. Close by is a swing bridge over the river for the track to Tahupo hut. There is then one further scenic waterfall before you reach the hut. We arrived at the hut around 5.30pm.

The hut is a 6 bunker but as the bunks are on two platforms it could comfortably accommodate 8 people. In terms of space for cooking and all the tramping stuff one brings, it doesn’t have the best design so felt quite crowded. However, outside there is a wooden ‘patio’ which provided a very pleasant spot for pre-dinner nibbles and watching the sun set. As the hut is set on an open grassy slope I was concerned that the space for tents would be limited but in fact there were several suitable spots below the hut and three of the group camped out. Evidently, the land on which Trains hut sits was given to a local publican many years ago in payment for a debt and either the debtor or the publican was called Trains.

On Sunday it was the same track out. Those of us who hadn’t gone down to the waterfall previously did so on the way out and again whio were spotted. We got back to the cars at around 1.30pm. Then it was the same drive out, with a coffee stop in Whanganui and arriving back home around 6pm.

Those on the trip were:

Kate Livingston, Tony Quayle, Chantal Heller, David Williams, Owen Cox, Marion Cox, Sue Pate, Neville Grubner