Waitewaewae Hut is one of the better known huts in the
local Tararua mountain range, but also one that had remained unsullied by my
presence. Until now that is.
The easiest way to access the hut is from Otaki Forks which
is about an hour and a half drive from Wellington and a rather fine spot in its
own right.
Accompanying me on the tramp was my mate John. I had sold
the walk to him as being relatively easy, but as is so often is the case, it
turned out to be nothing of the sort.
The first hour or so was very pleasant as the route
followed an old logging trail so was relatively flat. In fact the whole track
used to be considered fairly easy, but a very large slip has meant a substantial
detour onto a steep, rough and gnarly track that must have added around 3 hours
to the walk.
About an hour in. You can't beat a good swing bridge.
The walking was much harder than expected, especially for
John who doesn’t tramp as often as me. I actually felt pretty strong but also somewhat
embarrassed at underselling the walk to John.
The track was pretty rough in places - this was one of the nicer bits.
Around 4-hours in we came to a nice plateau and the
walking became easier for a while. After another couple of hours we came to a sign-post which indicated the hut was only 20 minutes away if accessed via a
river or 30 minutes by a high level route. The river route would have meant
getting wet and as I had never visited the hut before and wasn’t sure exactly
how easy it would be to access, decided to take the high level route instead. We
didn’t muck about from this point but it took well over an hour to actually
arrive at our destination. Whoever came up with the track times needs a damn
good thrashing.
Our home for the night.
By now it was also starting to get dark, so rather than a
nice swim in the river and general chill out session we had dinner and went
straight to bed. The hut itself was nice enough, but rather busy, so I decided
to sleep outside under the stars, which was very nice indeed.
The next day we set out early, this time walking along
the river to access the track back to Otaki. We took a bit of time to locate
the track, but even so, saved about an hour over the high route.
The next day - looking for the track.
After that, all that was left was a long trudge back to
the road-end.
