6-7 April 2019

Leader: Owen Cox

Two car loads of us headed up early on Saturday. We met for coffee and some food at Dannevirke and drove on to the Kashmir Road. Well one car load did; the other driver and passengers were on autopilot and headed for the Sunrise road-end.

Once this was sorted, they back tracked to the Kashmir Road and joined the rest. The other early mishap was that one of the party managed to leave my boots in Palmerston North in our car when we swapped into John’s more substantial one. No problem though as I was wearing the shoes that I did the Pennine Way in and these were good enough for the trip.

We then climbed the track to Longview and had a break on the ridge while a couple of us checked the hut. We then continued along the ridge a kilometre and half (or so) to the saddle just past Rocky Knob. While not marked the route down to the Pohangina River is obvious as it is a narrow lane of long tussock that is surrounded by almost neck deep leatherwood. After short distance this opens onto an open slope and we picked up the tape. The route then dropped into the gully and crossed the small creek. It then sidled down through scrub and trees on gentle slopes above the creek on the true right. Worth making sure you get the route right as missing the cut route would lead to a bit of a scrub bash.

Near the river the route heads right above the main river for a short distance before going down a steep old slip to the river. After a break here, we headed a short distance downstream. The stream was pretty frigid and the temperature was real break from the warm weather we’ve been having up to this weekend. The back of the party arrived to an empty hut, as for some reason the front runners decided to have a short tour of the valley further down with all their gear. The trip in took under fours from the road. After lighting the fire and putting on the billy I wandered (minus my pack) down to meet them coming back. The hut is just above a lovely valley with small grassy flats and clear stream with a couple of resident Blue Ducks.

Overnight we had little rain but the next day was not bad. We even had some sun going back up the valley. Just above where we dropped into the valley on Saturday it opens out to more small flats. About an hour above the hut we reached the first waterfall. This has a route around on the true left to get you back to the stream right on top of the waterfall’s lip. A short distance later we hit the second waterfall. This has a bit of a scramble but is well marked with orange markers on the true right. A short distance above this we climbed up a slip to the first snow pole and then up open slopes to the ridge above Longview. From here we headed at different paces back down to the cars. About three hours out.

Then coffee in Dannevirke. We all thought it is somewhere we should go back to.

Those on the trip were:

Owen Cox, Marian Cox, David Williams, Peter Davis, Marcia Goode, Penny Currier, John Sturgess

No photo album was created for this trip.