Sunday 2 February 2025

Leader: Peter Davis

Ten intrepid Parawai trampers assembled at the end of Scotts Road just in from Tokomaru for an 11 hour big adventure heading into Punga Hut, onto Mangahao Biv and return. Please note that the author tends to emphasise certain aspects of this trip for humour. It was not quite as bad as made out.

The first order of the day was to decide on the appropriate route, there were a couple of reports from other clubs as well as our own with some dire warnings about the perils of various options. We decided to follow instructions for a route to Punga Hut (which turned out to be relatively straightforward and less hazardous to life and limb than some of the other trip instructions described) and departed at 9:12am

The instructions: Leave the gated bridge at the end of Scotts Road; travel up Centre Road (M1) (signposted); Do not turn down Punga Road; Do not go up High Ridge Road; Pass the shelter on the Te Araroa Trail and continue straight ahead; Do not go up Loop Road (2 entries). We rested somewhere here at 10:11hrs. Do go up Scrub Ridge Road.

Continue up Centre Road. This is a fairly good gravel road that a 2-wheel drive car could get up. Then it morphs into a ‘motorbike type’ track among plantation forestry i.e. pines. Eventually we arrived at an overgrown track on the ridge with a mix of tall grass, waist high harakeke, head high horopito, chest high leatherwood, coprosmas and other plants thrown in as well. All plants were generously interspersed with the eternally cursed bush-lawyer. Everyone was endowed with blood and scratches on many parts of their anatomy compliments of the bush-lawyer. No-one escaped this natural injustice!

At the ridge the track seemed a bit better. We dropped down to our left and found a very well beaten track marked by orange triangles which made for easy navigation. The track dropped approximately 180m off the ridge with moderate to flat gradients.

We arrived at Punga Hut at 11:12am in reasonably good spirits, given our battles with the bush-lawyer. There is no running water at the hut but there is a very pleasant creek with beautifully clear cool water nearby. The hut itself is in reasonably good nick. It seems adequately dry and weather tight. It boasts a metal box fireplace which looks newish and a good-looking chimney, it also has serviceable bunks. Perhaps surprisingly we saw no evidence of rat damage.

So on to North Mangahao Biv, - here’s where the plot thickens. At first there were several orange, pink and blue markers along with some reasonably fresh blazes on the trees. There were also some white cut up plastic pieces nailed to the trees at ankle level which I don’t remember seeing before. This trail ran out after perhaps 20 minutes to leave us navigating by best guess, and following a red line on the digital Topo50 maps which were supplied by a previous trip who were probably as directionally challenged as we were. (The blind leading the blind comes to mind). At one point we came across a slip with second growth which was hard to push through, combined with mud that was trying its best to be quicksand but only partially achieving its aim. On top of this certain members of the party decided we should try to ascend and try to get above the slip much to the consternation of others. After a few minutes we opted for a tactical withdrawal on that assault and dropped a couple of gradient lines whilst hoping to out-manoeuvre the ‘swamp monster’; this strategy was indeed successful.

After hours of stumbling around trying to follow ‘mirages of track’ with various team members saying things like ‘we’re 300m from the biv’ sometimes separated by 15-minute chasms of time, our trip leader suggested at 1:53pm that we should have a break and consider trip alternatives; we could give up on the goal of getting to the biv or we could carry on. Collectively we decided to continue.

In the end we did find the biv at 2:30pm. I am still unsure if this was good navigation skills or divine mercy. After lunch a much happier and revived team set back on the track at 2:58pm and, wonder of wonders there was a moderately well-defined track that led us up the hill. BUT, buyer beware, that track ran out and despite the protestations of certain members of the party to look for more markers the team struck off down the hill taking the advice of several entries in the Mangahao logbook to try to stay between the 500m and 560m contour lines. We did manage to do this, with a few sidles. We rested at 4:04pm and refilled our bottles at 4:29pm.

We managed to avoid the 55 degree sloped swamp, with its accompanying monster by going lower and lower, till we could get under it BUT, what goes down must come up and eventually we came across the relatively well marked track leading us back to Punga Hut at 5:54pm, followed by another rest at 6:10pm.

We continued along the well-marked track up the ridge, through the closely growing vegetation laced with bush-lawyer for yet another round of bloodletting (not as bad as before) before regaining the road. At the end of the day there were no significant injuries, everyone was still capable of walking and even engaged in some banter. We arrived at Scotts Road at 8:20pm.

On the drive home we were treated to a red sky sunset; at least the weather gods were smiling on us even if the navigation ones tried hard to lead us astray. All in all a good time had by masochists and the sadists alike with all such desires fulfilled.

Suggestions for a future trip: Rather than going in from one side and returning, it might make more sense to have 2 groups, one starting from each end. BUT don’t count on meeting the other party on the way as the chance of you being at the same place between the biv and Punga Hut are not great. Rather give the other team the spare key to your car, then give them back when you meet up again. If one can get a key to the gate at Scotts Road it would save a minimum of an hour's boring and painful road walk at each end, which would make the day very much more pleasant.

Those on the trip were:

David Williams, Glen Cattermole, Gordon Balfour, Matt Freeland, Mike Carruthers, Paula Richardson, Peter Davis, Steve Hudson, Viv Roberts, Yingjun Shelton

Currently there is no photo album for this trip.