Bagging Blue Range, Cow Creek & Mitre Flats

11-12 January 2025

Leader: Tony Quayle

Well, one has to do one’s bit for this Tararua hutbagging challenge thingie, so I put my hand up for this one. Well, initially just for Blue Range and Cow Creek, but when my Ruahine friend, Chris (whose only previous Tararua venture was my Tutuwai trip last year) suggested we make it into a circuit, adding Mitre Flats was an easy decision.

That necessitated a car shuffle, of course, so we rendezvoused Saturday morning at The Pines, left my vehicle there, and moved on to our starting point at the Kiriwhakapapa roadend.

A steady climb to the top of Blue Range, where five of us detoured to bag the hut while Kate pushed on to make up a bit of ground. We spread out a bit on the stretch to Cow Creek, Ben and Rob steaming ahead in a manner befitting of their youth and relative youth respectively, while Chris and I maintained the rear guard and took time to smell the roses, admire the orchids and listen to a hind bark. I’d expected the hut to be occupied, and that we’d have to camp, but as it turned out we had the 6-bunker to ourselves. Only Rob elected to camp out. Maybe he was expecting snoring?

We were up soon after 6am on Sunday and on our way just after 7:30, on the long and somewhat tedious (give me a hill climb any day) valley walk via a lunch stop at Mitre Flats. On Julie’s suggestion, Ben grabbed my keys so he and Rob could at least get changed while waiting for the senior contingent to arrive. On the final stretch across farmland to the carpark, Julie - the least senior of the seniors - suddenly steamed past Chris and I to score third place at the finishing line.