We started at the Waiohine Gorge road end with the idea being to climb up and over the hill into the Tauherenikau river valley and then to spend the night at either Cone Hut or Tutuwai Hut, before retracing our steps the next day.
The track started of in spectacular fashion as we had to cross a large swingbridge which spans the Waiohine Gorge. This particular bridge was constructed last year and is around 100m long and is situated 90m above the river. It is a testament to the bridges design and construction that it hardly swayed at all when we crossed, even though we had very high winds on the first day of the tramp. Crossing many swing bridges in high winds can be unnerving as they can tilt alarmingly, with the seeming intention of throwing you out and into the abyss.
Immediately after the bridge the track climbed steeply, before eventually levelling out at around the 700m mark. I don't get out and about as much as I used to, so my calf muscles in particular took a real pounding on this section. For the next hour or so the track the track levelled out and made for some very pleasant walking. It was around this time that the rain that had been falling lightly right from the start of the walk, started to get much heavier.
After a couple of hours we came to a junction in the track with one way climbing up to Cone (1080m) and the other way dropping down to Cone hut. On another day we would most likely have climbed up to Cone, but with the rain getting heavier and the prospect of winds well in excess of 100km/hr on the tops we decided it would be prudent to descend down to Cone hut.
After an hour or so we reached Cone Hut and decided to spend the night here rather than travel further down the valley to Tutuwai Hut. There were a number of reasons for this; two women we met at the roadend had said that a big party were staying at Tutuwai and as it was also getting late, we would have spent the last hour or so tramping in the dark. All in all it was a good decision, as Cone hut had a lot of character and we had the place to ourselves.
The stay at the hut was uneventful enough, although I didn't sleep that well, what with the noise of the rain (which fell all night) and the constant roar from the Tauherenikau river.
The next day was also wet, so it was a case of gritting ones teeth and getting on with it. By the time we got back to the roadend the rain had eased off. This a function of the mountains, in that the rainfall increases dramatically the further you go into them; we had around 150mm rain on this trip, yet just a few km's away it was completely dry
It would have been nice to have had a less "soggy" trip, but it was fun all the same.
At the start of the walk on the swingbridge.
Cone Hut.
Simon and I.
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