Wednesday, 26 April 2017

Traveling the Dimholt Road

I had the great luck of being able to borrow a friend's car this past weekend and so decided to get out exploring some of the sights that are slightly further afield from Wellington and not accessible by public transit.  It was also my first time driving since June and I had somehow forgotten how nice a weekend road trip with some car camping thrown in can be.  Ross was off on the South Island helping with a field trip so this was a solo camping/road trip.  I camped at the Putangirua Pinnacles and then rounded out the weekend by going to the Cape Palliser Lighthouse and Castlepoint.  For all of those Lord of the Ring fans/nerds out there, Putangirua Pinnacles is where the scenes in The Return of the King of Aragorn, Gimli, and Legolas riding along the Dimholt Road to meet the Army of the Dead were filmed and it is just as awesome as it looks in the movie.


 
I didn't leave Wellington until after noon on Saturday because I had to drop the cat that I'd been watching off at the cattery (yes, that is an actual thing in New Zealand) and then grab my camping gear.  It was a little less than two hours to the Pinnacles.  Since it is fall here and the days are getting noticeably shorter, I started up the trail immediately as the afternoon shadows were already starting to grow and I am well versed at setting up a tent  by headlamp (or head torch, as they are called here).  It is less than an hour up the stream before you find yourself staring up into the canyons and gullies around the base of the Pinnacles.  







The formations are composed of 7-9 million year old gravels that are slowly being eroded by the elements into hoodoos (not a Kiwi-ism, you see these formations in Badlands around the world).  After wandering around in the stream valley for a while, I hiked up to the overlook.  It was steep but short and well worth it.  I then meandered back to the carpark, found a tent site, and set up camp.  The Pinnacles are located along Cape Palliser so I was treated to a gorgeous sunset across the bay with the sun going down behind the Rimutakas (where the Papatahi Crossing is located).



Heading back toward the carpark
I was hiking over there a couple weeks ago...
On Sunday morning, I continued east and made a brief stop at the Cape Palliser Lighthouse, which was constructed in 1897 and is reached after a whooping 253 stairs from the caretakers house.  I got there before the sun had fully crested the mountains (remember, it's fall = late sunrise) and had the place to myself for a while.  It was very peaceful but I image that it must be a bear during storms.  Cape Palliser also has the North Island's largest fur seal colony.  I had completely forgotten this until I was pulling away from the lighthouse and a seal head suddenly popped up out of the grass not 10 feet in front of the car.  Needless to say, I got out and got some pictures.

So many stairs...

Looking west from the lighthouse
Looking southeast from the lighthouse
Look at all of those wrinkles!

From Cape Palliser, I headed up to Castlepoint.  It was a 2.5-hour drive through the countryside on rather narrow, twisty-turny roads.  Castlepoint was named by Captain Cook in 1770 due to the resemblance of 162-meter high Castle Rock to the battlements of a castle.  The lighthouse on the Reef was first lit in 1913 and is one of the last two remaining beam lighthouses in New Zealand.  There are two main tracks that you can take:  the Lighthouse Walk and the Deliverance Cove Track.  Both are short and pretty.  If you are afraid of heights, I would not recommend climbing to the top of Castle Rock, which is a possible add-on to the Deliverance Cove Track.  The Lighthouse Walk has the added bonus of tons of fossilized seashells for anyone who is interested in rocks.


Deliverance Cove and Castle Rock
Looking south down the coast from Castle Rock
The Reef and the Lighthouse from Castle Rock
After I had had my fill of lighthouses and precarious heights, I started the 2.5-hour drive back to Wellington from Castlepoint, arriving home in time for Indian takeaway for dinner.  There was a lot of time in a car over the weekend but all-in-all it was a fun weekend with great weather and really I can't complain too much when I get to get out and explore new places.

Saturday, 8 April 2017

Papatahi Crossing

As I type up yet another blog about hiking around Wellington, I am quickly realizing that this has turned into a hiking blog...  I guess that you write about what you love though, and Ross and I love to get outdoors.  So hopefully you all are enjoying hearing about all of our hiking adventures or are at least enjoying the pictures of backcountry New Zealand - it is a truly remarkable place.

We came across this gem at one point when we were looking for the trail...
Last weekend we did the Papatahi Crossing with the tramping club (WTMC).  It crosses the Rimutaka Range via Papatahi Peak (906 m).  We hiked it east to west, starting from close to Lake Wairarapa and ending in the Orongorongo Valley, at the Catchpool carpark.  According to the DOC website, it is a 10 km trail but that is blatantly wrong.  All that I can think is that they must have been measuring a shorter route or a partial route because what we did was approximately 25 km with over 800 m of elevation gain and loss.


We started out on Saturday morning, meeting at the train station, and then were driven to the trailhead.  The track starts off going across some farmer's fields before you get into the hills.  Initially the track was really easy to follow with some minor detours around trees that had blown down but after we crossed Battery Stream, the track disappeared and even following the orange markers became rather challenging.  About this time we also started to gain elevation.  Until I moved to New Zealand, I don't think that I truly appreciated how steep hills/mountains could be while still having a track going up them, and that's saying a lot because I grew up in Colorado.  Kiwi's do not seem to appreciate switchbacks either so the trails, literally, go straight up the side of mountains.  On this track we were treated to a couple sections with ropes to help you pull yourself up the hill.  I have also grown to truly appreciate the ample vegetation in the New Zealand bush because I regularly use tree trunks, roots, bushes, etc. to help pull myself up the track.  I'm not saying this to make you feel bad for me (I do voluntarily go on these trips and love them), I'm just trying to give you a sense of what hiking in New Zealand can be like.

Wharepapa River

We eventually made it up and over a small saddle and back down to Wharepapa Hut, along the Wharepapa River.  At this point it was almost 3 p.m.  We discussed our options, neither of which were amazing.  We could 1) set up camp and stay where we were, knowing that it would mean an incredibly long hike on Sunday or we could 2) fill up our water and hike partially up Papatahi Peak and hopefully camp at a flat-ish looking spot but then we wouldn't have to start off Sunday with a 700+ meter climb.  Eventually we opted to stay at Wharepapa (close to water and known place to camp) and just have a really long Sunday (which it was).  We had a tasty dinner and then sat around a campfire on the riverbank, talking, eating spice cake that the trip leader had made, and watching the sunset.

The group (minus the other Ross) at Wharepapa Hut



We got up at 6 a.m. and were on the trail not too long after 7 a.m. but seeing as we had just gone off summer time, it wasn't nearly as bad as it sounds.  Once again we went up and up and up, making it to the top of Papatahi shortly after 11, with many stops to find the track again as we had similar trail conditions to Saturday (i.e. - very, very steep and poorly marked).  Unfortunately there were low clouds, so at the top we were treated to high winds and a sea of grey.  The forest near the top was incredible though.  The trees were carpeted with moss to the point that there was no visible bark from the roots to the leaves.

Wharepapa River


A glimpse of the ocean through the trees
Looking back down where we'd come from.
We are on the trail, believe it or not.
After a quick group photo and some chocolate, we started down.  And down, and down.  I had thought that going up Papatahi from the east was steep.  Little did I know...  There were a couple places where we could see the remnants of rope to assist in the ascent/descent but they had long ago broken, so we were once again relying on trees, roots, vines, etc. to aid in our descent so that we didn't go head over heels down the mountain.  

Sea of grey atop Papatahi
Moss covered trees near the top of Papatahi
We ended up having a late lunch where the trail first meets the Orongorongo River.  From there we followed the river (literally walking along and in and across the river) for about 3 km before rejoining a trail that followed the river from up on the bank, though everyone had wet feet by this point.  The rest of the (long) walk back to the carpark was mostly flat (at least compared to what we had just done) and pretty, meandering through the forest with multiple public and private huts off to each side.

Back below the clouds, looking at Orongorongo River

North Boulder Creek
Orongorongo River

Leaving the Orongorongo River behind
We ended up hiking about 14 miles with about 3,000 feet of elevation gain and loss on Sunday, so needless to say, we were all very happy to reach the van.  This was another nice, challenging hike and I'm glad that we were with a group for the route-finding issues.  We had a really great time and it was a great group of people that we were hiking with.  Hopefully we will run into them again on future club trips.  I have to say though, one of the best parts of the weekend was the fact that we didn't get rained on!  It was threatening rain most of Sunday but it didn't actually start to rain until we were in the van, driving back to Wellington.  I don't even want to think about how much more challenging the ascents and descents would have been if everything had been wet and slippery too!