I had been semi-seriously looking into tramping into this unfrequented part of Te Urewera for about a year or so. I was looking for a tramp for Kahu (my dog) and I that wouldn't see us run into anyone else, apart from the possible local. University and various other hold-ups had prevented any solid plans being made. But my impending trip overseas saw a vague plan come to fruition with friends Rob and Talor.
One night out at my current living situation in Piha I drew up the vague plan below. Day one would be a quick walk up the Whakatane River Valley to the confluence of the Ohora Stream, then follow the Ohora up to Onepu Hut. Day two would be traversing a ridge over to the Tauranga River, then follow the river up to Te Pouwera Hut. The theoretically short day three would be up and over to the Ohane stream to the Ohane Hut, and if we had the legs to cut down to the Waikare Junction hut. This extra one and a half hours walk should (according to my theory) take some time off the final day, which was following the Whakatane River back to the car. A Saturday through Tuesday in late March was marked for the expedition.
Rob was working in Gisborne for the week, so Tay and I drove from Auckland and met him at a backpackers in Whakatane on Friday evening. Backpackers are now so wildly overpriced at $25 per night as NZ tries to squeeze every last drip from the tourism sponge. After a good feed at the Whakatane Hotel, we made a visit to the supermarket to stock up on kai for the mission. After a rubbish sleep in a packed portacom bunkroom, we loaded Tay's Mazda Demio and drove towards Rūātoki - the gateway to Te Urewera.
After passing through a misty Rūātoki, we hit the 4wd road and bumped into Kahu (not my dog but a man) who lives in a place at the start of the track. Kahu is a kind-of ranger for the area, and had previously told Rob over the phone a few of the need-to-knows while up in the bush. After a quick chat and some dodgy pond crossings in the Demio, we arrived at Kahu's place which was nestled up on the hill above the river flats. We parked in Kahu's home paddock amongst his pigs and horses, slung our packs on and headed up the side of the river.
The track wound alongside some scrubby farmland and bush before dropping onto the Ringatipihi river flat. With the ground still swampy from the rainstorm a couple of weeks back, our feet were soon wet which I don't think changed for the next four days. A number of horses and cows were scattered around, and we saw a hunter on horseback with a couple of dogs a couple of hundred metres away but he didn't return a wave. The track then returned to the bush, which was increasingly dense. The track seemed to follow an old river terrace much of the time, which sat 5-10 metres above the river level. While this was largely flat, it was interrupted by drops into tributary streams which appeared out of the hillside and a lot of fallen trees.
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Ringatipihi Flat
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| Big Kahikatea (Photo: Rob Champion) |
By now we had some idea of the state of the tracks for the rest of the tramp. For those not in the know, as part of the Tūhoe Claims Settlement Act 2014 and Te Urewera Act 2014, Te Urewera National Park was discontinued and the managament of the area was legally returned to Tūhoe, Tūhoe being tangata whenua (host) and kitiaki (guardians). While this changeover occurs it seems much of the track maintenance has been put on hold, but the orange trail markers of the DOC days still remained largely intact so following was largely not too much of a task. That said, the fern and weed growth did require the machete to be brought out at times.
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| Whakatane River crossing |
We stopped for a quick bite and to check the map around four kilometres from the confluence of the Ohora Stream. The river level was low at this point, so we decided to leave the bush and walk up the river bed which required a few knee deep crossings. The semi-wild horses were keeping the grass low on the banks, but unfortunately this allows the blackberries to spread unless hindered by regenerating manuka...
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| Rob on the Ohora swing bridge |
We reached the confluence of the Ohora stream and found the swing bridge which lead across to the Ohora Hut. We dropped out packs and checked out the hut quickly (missing 10 of 12 mattresses but otherwise in generally good order, great carving telling a Māori tale of how the stream was named), but the reason to stop was lunch: wraps with salami, cheese, and cucumber...
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| Ohora Hut |
We soon got away and headed up the stream bed of the Ohora. This is a beautiful stream with thick bush and nice little swimming holes all the way up. The track here is largely the stream bed, and is not really suitable for flood. There were 4wd tracks up the pebble banks and a lot of deer and horse tracks. After an hour or so we spied what looked like our hut destination. I was sceptical whether or not we were in the right place, but we headed up to check out what was eventually Hapenui Hut. This is a nice new hut which looked to be in regular use by trappers and local hunters, but it is not on the map.
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| Hapenui Hut |
We carried on up the Ohora through some beautiful narrow gorges with crystal clear water and moss covered sides - this was true Te Urewera. Absolutely untouched and magical. We happened upon Onepu Hut around 5pm, set on a nice little flat in the Y of the Ohora and another tributary. We had a swim in the stream to get the scunge off, had a kai of some packet miso soup, couscous and a few veges and feta. This hut has 7 bunks and an open fire which we got going to dry some of our gear off (looking back on this now, drying our gear seems rather pointless). The privy could do with a new bit of ply under the seat as the mdf was sagging and made you feel like you may go in.. But I love this little hut :)
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| Ohora Stream (RC) |
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| Ohora Stream (RC) |
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| Onepu Hut |
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| Te Urewera morning |
We woke to a mist filled valley, got some breakfast into us and got away just before 9am. The day started off by going straight up the steep spur above the hut. Elevation in this section goes from around 150m to 550m in just over 1km as the crow flies so was a pretty decent climb. The track was well marked and it took a bit over an hour to get on top of the ridge.
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| Up the steep ridge out of the Ohora Valley |
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A glimpse of the Ohora valley from the top of the ridge.
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After a quick break, we carried on around the top of the ridge. We bumped into a couple of pig hunters and their dogs. They raised their eyebrows at our intention of making Te Pouwera hut before nightfall. In their understated words: "you guys have quite a tramp". The track here is also a trapping line so there are plenty of markers, just be sure to follow orange as the pink or yellow can lead you down the wrong spur. After 2 hours going along the ridges, the track dropped steeply into the Tauranga River Valley. We could hear the river and I was keen to get out of the bush as the rain looked to be setting in which may have made the Tauranga River section ahead a little tricky. We dropped down the final spur and crossed the river (around knee deep at this time) and had a quick lunch on the pebbles (same as the day before but with a 'cafe elle' as they came to be called (instant coffee and milk power made by me)..
We slung our packs back on and jumped up onto Matahi Valley Rd, which is a metal sealed road heading up the eastern side of the valley. We got our pace on going up the relatively flat road. On the way we passed a couple of cars and a convoy of around a dozen U.S. Army jeep enthusiasts each with their own jeep model and camo uniform to match. We crossed Otapukawa Stream at which point the road becomes 4wd only. After winding up through the narrowing gorge, the valley opens up to a beautiful flat bit of pasture with a couple of houses and heaps of horses.
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| Matahi Valley Road (RC) |
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| Love this little valley |
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| Hunter's hut made of punga |
While the 4wd track stays on the true right of the river, we decided that the river bed would make more enjoyable walking so we headed directly up the Tauranga crossing back on forth in no more than knee high water. This was probably some of my most favourite walking on this tramp. The rain had started to fall and the bush was thick and mossy. We soon cut up through some deer tracks through the bracken fern to find Te Pouwera Hut.
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| Tauranga River crossing |
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| Te Pouwera Hut |
At the hut we found two Australians named Rob and Kerry, one fly fisher and one turing cyclist who had walked up from the road end and come across the swing bridge who were friendly. Rob and I went down to the river for a very cold (read very brief) swim in the fading light and we then cooked dinner. This hut has 8 bunks, a nice little wood burner, and three dog kennels outside. Rob the Aussie said she would sleep in her new bivvy bag outside as she was snorer so the four of us got to bed not long after dinner. It was a hot sleep as I had stacked the wood burner, and then at around 3am the rain hit hard, eventually driving Rob back inside as her bivvy bag flooded.
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| Morning blue skies after the rain |
At around 7am the weather had paused briefly with some blue skies coming through. As this day was planned to be a relatively short day (6-7 hours) we took our time with breakfast, and I went down to check the river level to get some idea of the amount of rain further up in the hills. It had risen a decent foot and was milky as opposed to the clear of the day before. We gave the Aussies a message to text to Rob's fiancée saying that we may be a day longer if the river levels got too dangerous, and got away around 9:30am.
Straight out of the hut we hit a steep spur leading us to the top of the ridge that sits around 650-700m in elevation. This bush was beautiful with huge matai and rimu. By now the rain had kicked in again and was absolutely bucketing down, but it was warm enough with the steep climb. After winding along the ridge for a coupe of hours we were heading back down again and the bush changed to being more dominated by large manuka and totara. This spur is a proper goat track - the path is a foot wide flanked by very steep slopes and eventually ends at the confluence of the Mauri and Te Awamate streams, which at this point becomes the Ohane Stream.
The Ohane was running high at this point, and the track crosses back on forth across the stream bed with no alternative through the steep valley. We were up for it though, and cut ourselves some manuka poles for stream crossings. It was laborious but good fun doing the crossings, and after a while our careful selection of crossing point gave way to charging across with casual disregard for technique. This was still a slow form of travel, and it took a good 2 1/2 hours to get down to Ohane hut at around 3:30pm.
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| Bush up on the ridge (RC) |
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| Ohane crossing |
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| Self timer of the team at Ohane Hut |
Ohane Hut is nestled up on a clearing above the stream and has 6 bunks, an open fire, and a good indoor table. A bit of rat droppings though.. We had a late lunch here and pondered our plans for the afternoon. The question was whether to stay at Ohane Hut with around 1 1/2 hours of river crossings to do in the morning before we met up with the Whakatane again, or to do the crossings that afternoon with an estimated half hour stroll up a flat track to the Waikare Junction Hut which was on up the Whakatane River. The idea was to gain the hour difference for the next day if the Whakatane River was in flood and was in any way difficult. Rob was all in, I was 75%25% in favour and Tay - while was keen to stay at Ohane - went along with us on the decision. It turned out to be the first bad decision of the expedition.
So we headed down the Ohane crossing back and forth and the valley opened up to some patches of grass and manuka scrub. As we got to the confluence of the Ohane and the Whakatane, we saw that the Whakatane was indeed heaving and silted, a far cry from a couple of days before. Kahu had told Rob on the phone that this area had a bit of black berry to contend with, and we saw a few things that looked like tracks completely overgrown. We ended up picking a really silly route up through a deer track which required me to machete a path for about 100m through thick blackberry and braken before we found what was left of the main track. Rob took over with the machete, but by now it was getting dark and and we needed to move quick to prevent night time navigation of black berry fields. I hung back with Tay and spied the hut far away through the mist on the valley side.
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| The very swollen Whakatane River (RC) |
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| Tay on the Whakatane River valley - up there somewhere was the Waikare Junction Hut |
A good 800m of blackberry hacking later it was dark, and the track near Te Akau stream had completely slipped away quite recently. With no alternative path around the steep valley side, we dropped blindly into and across the slip. The other side was well above our heads, and we dragged ourselves and our wet packs up the other side with aid of tree roots. The orange markers had disappeared down the slip, and we walked in the dark through the bush and eventually spied a hut across a glow-worm filled ravine. A glimmer of relief disappeared when it turned out to be yet another hunter's shack made from tarps and punga. These places are pretty creepy with the cages for dogs and general ambiance. But soon after we stumbled up a small hill to the Waikare Junction Hut.
To regain some group moral I quickly fixed up dinner as we were all pretty cut up and exhausted. I was still getting used to using my MSR multi-fuel stove, and had gone through the bottle of unleaded I started the tramp with. Rob had some white gas, and I nearly burnt down the hut as well as buring off my eyebrows in the process of getting that clean burning stuff going! But after dinner was cooked we pretty much hit the hay.
Waikare Junction Hut is on a nice northerly facing clearing overlooking the river valley. It has 10 bunks, a wood burner, and decent outdoor benches and tables for cooking on. The only bad parts were the resident rat who I set the trap for on the way out, and the balcony rail which dislodged as Rob was leaning on it, sending him tumbling down onto the grass. It would have been a nice spot to hang around and seems to be used mainly by hunters, although there is no intentions book which made it hard to be sure how often it is used.
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| Dawn on the Whakatane from the Waikare Junction Hut |
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| Waikare Junction Hut in the morning mist |
With a big day ahead starting with the slip and the blackberries, we were up and gone by 7:30am. But the retrace down to the Ohane confluence was fast in the daylight, and soon we had crossed the stream and we working our way down the side of the Whakatane. The track kept on with the blackberry scrub for a bit, and we traversed where a fire had gone through in the last couple of years. This was clear of blackberries but had no sign of the track markers, and we crossed a couple of deep ravines before we found the track again. This section of the track you have to keep your eye out for markers. We often veered down towards the river to find ourselves having to half bush bash uphill to find a sign of the path. We did find a couple of hunting huts down by the river just under the peak of Huitieke where there is a steep gorge section of the river.
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| Looking for a safe crossing, not to be had... (RC) |
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Hunting huts, rough and not so rough
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| As yet unnamed marae |
The river valley then opened up and we found ourselves walking past a beautiful little marae situated up on and old river flat. I can't seem to find out the correct name for it and will ask Tūhoe. Beautiful whakairo on some poles out front, on the maihi and amo. This marae is a good 17km by 4wd from the Rūātoki Rd end and I'm curious at how much it gets used. We met a bunch of overly curious/slightly agressive cattle who followed us as we tried to find a spot to stop for a bite. Finally, after we crossed a small braid in the river, they left us to eat in peace. The track eventually met back up with the Ohora Hut again, where we stopped for a quick drinks break, and then we headed out onto the river flats to make what was our second mistake of the trip.
We decided with no discussion that a couple of river crossings at this point would hasten our journey. I went out first. It was waist deep for around 30m and hard going, but I eventually made it across. Rob and Tay also had a hard time, with Tay getting a little stuck in the middle but making it out ok. It did take it out of us though, and we still had to get back across to the true right hand side where the track was. The river had split into two braids by now, and the first was an easy cross. The braid on the outside bend was however much faster moving and deeper, and we couldn't find a safe spot to go across. After a few test attempts, I eventually found a line that seemed to stay below waist depth. Just over halfway across the river got suddenly deeper and much faster moving, but I had come too far to go back. I went for it and lost my footing completely, with my face going into the water as I got swept down towards the next bend. I managed to keep pushing off the bottom to the other side of the river, but was cold and knackered as I dragged myself up on the bank. Deciding against crossing, the other boys backtracked to find a better place to get across and I bush crashed up until I found the track, ditched my pack, and ran back up to meet the others once they got across. All up this took a good 45 mins until we were all together and walking again. Lesson learnt.
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| Swollen Ohora crossing (RC) |
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| The mistaken Whakatane crossing.. (RC) |
The last bit of the tramp went by in a blur as familiar parts of the track were retraced. The ravines and fallen trees that we had jumped across on the way up were however a little more challenging to re-navigate with our achy legs. Finally, we crossed the Ringatipihi Flat and wound down the last little bit of scrub land to Kahu's place. We were met by the pigs and a shit tonne of sandflies, which saw us make for the 4wd track with a quick honk to say bye. Kahu came screaming after us in his ute to warn us the ponds to get out were up to metre deep in places, so Rob and I got out and guided Tay and his Demio through. We think a bit of water got in the doors :). We had a quick chat with Kahu and he seemed rather suprised/impressed at our navigation of the swollen Ohane Stream. Top guy!
Overall, minus the two mistakes, this tramp is amazing. This part of Aotearoa is wild like nowhere else.The huts are great and the bush is absolute perfection. It might be better to take an extra day on this route, maybe hang out at one of the huts and enjoy the scenery as this was a lot of kms to cover in four days. On wikiloc it is around estimate it at around 80-90km. Plus the added variable of heavy rain made it a little more difficult/exciting.
