Dodger Hut

Saturday, February 20th, 2016

Friday 5 – Monday 8 February 2016

Ohau – it is a place that beckons from time to time. Nowadays a collection of flash houses boasting prime views up the Hopkins and Dobson Valleys guards the entrance to this beautiful area.  The crown to the north from here is Aoraki-Mt Cook.

Not far past the village the road turns to shingle.  We follow the lake, rippled by a light breeze.  Shingle screes dive steeply from tussock-clad tops. Behind are the more imposing peaks: sharp, craggy, slabbed, mostly greywacke.  Matagouri and rosehip carelessly clothe the “dry”.  Merino sheep, heads bowed under the heat, gather in small groups discussing their futures. The land struggles, as it always has.  (This is captured splendidly in the title of Eileen McMillan’s massive local history: “Frugal country and Hard on the Boots”.)  Our track is worn and dusty. We meander ever closer to the valley proper.  There are five of us – Robbie, Bess, Kate, Jane and Graham in Robbie’s 4wd, travelling together like sardines in a tin with five full weekend packs jammed in behind us.  Jane knits; we banter; mostly we are just happy to be on our way. The weather is promising and so is the company. We arrive at Monument Hut just after 8pm on Friday, 196km from Oamaru.  There we meet Emily and John, who have walked in from the Ram Hill car park earlier.

Our first night is spent at Monument: tents for most, the hut for some: a clear starry night, magical as ever.  A lone, distant morepork greets us to the valley. The passing cavalcade of 4wds through the night reminds us of the civilisation we had hoped to leave behind us.

Saturday morning, up with the sun and on the way at 7.30, we travel over grassy river flats, crossing braids of the Hopkins River.  Some caution is called for; we cross in twos and threes using the pole method.  The valley here is wide, flanked on one side by the Dasler Pinnacles in the Neumann Range and on the other by the mountains of the main divide. There are cattle grazing. Loud bellows echo around the distant valleys as bulls call their harems to order. Canada geese graze in small flocks.  They honk and talk to each other, searching out the best bits on the banks. Delicate terns flit gently by, peeking at the world through masked faces. We head up the valley on a perfect day – clear sky, bright sun and (unusually) no wind.

Lunch is devoured on a grassy bank under the beech trees in front of the Elcho Hut.  We cross the Elcho for a look at the Apricot (Culler) Hut. The heat has arrived. Apricot Hut is perfectly parked at the bottom of a forest-ringed grassy meadow, hidden from the valley floor. Ensconced currently are hunters. How do we know? The rum bottle is a dead giveaway! Behatted and sunscreened we head onwards across wide flats and old shingle fans clothed in lush browntop and sweet vernal pasture between the bush-clad mountains.  As we get close to the Dodger Hut the valley bottom is still 1 km wide and is supporting a substantial herd of Hereford cows and calves (and bulls). We avoid the swing bridge and opt to cross the river and walk the wide tussock fan.  We should have kept lower on the fan, but we soon find the Dodger Hut, empty and inviting, reaching it hot and thirsty after a seven hour tramp, albeit with stops and excursions. Tents are set up, but thoughts of exploring the upper valley are replaced by cups of tea – soup – popcorn – snacks – mattresses pulled out of the hut in the shade of the beech trees –a dip in the creek – glassing with binoculars – joking a bit – telling a few lies. Behind us the pip-pip of tomtits. Down on the riverbed, bulls flail dust demonstrating their power. And then – arrival of children – skylarking, polite, chasing through the bush, swinging branches.  A family holiday – two vehicles loaded with supplies: “I suppose we are your worst nightmare”.   But no; they offered us light entertainment.  After tea, they roast marshmallows around a small fire and retire quietly to bed.  Tents pitched, bellies full, washed and refreshed, we have time to reflect as the sun goes down: it has been a wonderful day, plodding to our destination. We gather up our aches and pains and tuck ourselves in for an early night.

Sunday dawned fine, the sun being welcomed by the Hereford County Choir in chorus.  Today is Thompson Stream – a trip of exploration for all of us. Thompson Stream lies opposite the Dodger, so an early morning river crossing through milky glacier-fed waters is inevitable. Once across the main river, we look for the way into the Thompson.  We have conflicting advice: some club members had said the track went in on the stream’s true right, but other written accounts suggested the true left.  Both were right!  We find the signposted entrance to the track below where the stream meets the Hopkins Valley but, after a short walk through the bush we emerge on the Thompson Stream right bank to cross to the true left and start the steep 250 metre climb up a rough but clearly marked bush track.  After about an hour the track levels out, crossing a couple of grassy clearings with a fern-filled gully in between.  Then we drop steeply back to the creek, around two hours after starting the climb.

The valley is stunning. The glacial blue water of the stream dodges and swirls its way swiftly through the massive boulders which crowd the valley bottom, beneath steep scree and scrub covered sides ringed at the top by the semi-circular Foster Glacier which, in turn, is crowned by a series of main-divide peaks from the 2645m Mt Ward in the south to the 2538m Mt Williams to the north. Pools beckon between the torrents – but they are freezing cold.  The sub-alpine vegetation is quite different from the mountain beech-celery pine association in the main valley. Hoheria dominates with Dracophyllum; the Ranunculus and Celmisia have finished flowering, but a white-flowered NZ broom (Carmichaelia) is in full bloom and its delicate scent permeates the atmosphere. Graham spies a greenhood orchid (Pterostylis)

We boulder- bash up the valley, sometimes clambering along the edge, sometimes in the water or climbing up to avoid a bluff.  We find a lunch spot on a rocky beach beside the stream.  After lunch we leave our gear and set out to explore further up the stream, looking for the elusive last corner which would reveal all. But around every corner is … another corner.  An hour of this brings us to turn-around time. We get our best view from a rock perched high on the alpine meadows; cameras snap to capture the encircling rocky peaks and the glaciers hanging in wait. The bare rock is scored and worn by ice: grey and smooth.  Moraine rock fills the valley floor; surrounding scree feeds in even more rock.  The meadow is carpeted with “lily” pad leaves and silver swords of Celmisia.  It is one of those magical “sun on the cheeks” days.  We will go home happy.

Our return journey is quieter. Tired but content, we slowly retrace our steps over the bush-clad knob to the stream mouth.  This time, we keep to the true left until we emerge into the main valley, so we can cross the Hopkins where it is smaller. Someone nurses a rolled ankle, another ripped pants; sore knees are common; but none of this matters much.  A swim for some and the day is complete as we wend our way back to the hut.  Snacks, dinner and another warm but quiet night.

Monday sunrise is greeted by the Canada goose ensemble, the Hereford chorus having headed up the valley.  We arise bright and early (or at least early) to pack up and get on the trail home.  We stick to the true left of the Hopkins for the return journey, partly for variation but also because it offers more shade from the blazing sun.  The going alternates between grassy meadow and rocky riverbed, but is straightforward. We pause for a break at the bottom of the Dasler Pinnacles track, and give away the option of a side trip up to the Dasler Biv.  So we continue downstream to stop for a long and leisurely lunch at the 100 year-old Red Hut, where we bone up on the hut’s history as part of a misguided plan to establish a tourist route to Mt Cook to rival the Milford Track.  We cross several streams of the braided Hopkins and are back to Monument Hut by early afternoon.

Five then head back by 4wd to Oamaru and the other two on foot to Ohau.  For three days we had left the busy world behind. We had laughed together and worked together as a team.  Richer for the experience…..we think so.  We will be back.

Bess, Emily, Graham, Jane, Robbie, John, and Kate.

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Awakino Saddle, Black Daisies

Monday, January 25th, 2016

Lunch at the tarn

24th January 2016

Sunday 24^th proved to be a fine interlude in an otherwise unsettled period of easterly weather.  It was pleasantly mild and, although the sky darkened in the afternoon, the rain held off and a strong easterly breeze came and went. Eight trampers travelled in two 4WDs from Oamaru, including five club members (Linda, Neville, Jane, Ross and John), one prospective member (Hugh), Zuni Steer from Forest and Bird, and Hugh Wood, NZ Alpine Club member and acknowledged expert on the plants of the St Marys Range. They met another four in Kurow: Club members Helen and Rodney, OTMC member Janet and her son Russell.  Three vehicles were driven in to the carpark at the bottom of the Awakino ski field road (81km from Oamaru) where the Kurow four transferred to the two 4WDs which took all twelve the 4km up to park by the ski huts.

Booted up, the twelve headed up the 4WD track to the saddle at about 1700m on the main St Marys Range ridge.  There, the party split.  One (Zuni) stayed to fossick around the saddle and lower part of the ridge leading to Te Kohurau.  Helen and Rodney headed north-west up the main ridge to Rocky Top (1942m) whence they turned south down into the valley towards the tarn.  The main party of nine followed Hugh Wood on a journey of exploration west across the upper reaches of the valley leading down to Hut Creek.  On the way they were introduced to an amazing variety of plant associations uniquely adapted to the differing environments in an area which, to the uneducated eye, looked like barren scree.

The tarn (near point 1616) was reached in time for lunch and the main party was joined by Helen and Rodney.  After lunch the main party, now eleven, headed back to the main ridge, but on a higher line than the outward trip.  At the saddle, all twelve climbed the lower reaches of the route to Te Kohurau to stop on a shoulder and explore the vegetation in a wetland area there.  Then it was time to head down, first to the saddle and then to the vehicles at the ski huts for the homeward journey via the compulsory ice-cream stop in Kurow.

This was a tramp with a difference. For most of us, who are accustomed to enjoying the big picture through which we are tramping, it was a major experience in learning that that big picture is made up of a myriad of varied and fascinating small pictures occupying the many micro-environments.  Many thanks to Hugh Wood for so enthusiastically sharing his knowledge.

John.

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Dave’s Track

Wednesday, January 20th, 2016

Working Bee  17/1/2016

Seven of us meet on a damp and drizzly morning wondering what we were doing having a working bee on a day like that, but the weather man on the computer told me there would not be any rain at Trotters Gorge. So off we headed south for the Trotters Gorge Reserve car park. However as we drove through Alma it was still bucketing down, but computer weather man had said it would be fine and low and behold when we got to Herbert the drizzle cleared to high cloud and it was quite dry.

Arriving at the car park we were meet by two others which made our numbers up to nine, a good turnout for a working bee. We headed off up the track past the University Hut to the junction in the track. Then we took the track to the right over Trotters creek where there was once the creek bed but is now covered in gorse and up to the start of Dave’s Track under Ahns Peak.

Dave’s track is named after Dave Sinclair, a member of our club, who planned many years ago to explore a track up this wee scrubby lime stone valley, but sadly he passed away at a young age before he achieved it. So some of our club members back then explored the valley and marked a track that the club and hunters have used many times over the years.

We started by opening the entrance of the track and found that someone else had cleared a bit of a new track up onton  the low terrace. From there we dropped down over a creek and worked our way up the valley. In most places the track was easy to find with a bit of clearing here and there of bush and gorse, but there was a couple of places where we had to work out where the track went.

We were soon up to the stone cliff the splits the valley. From here the track follows the cliff base to the left for a few 100 metres and then drops down though some honey suckle which was a bit of a mess to clean up. Then it is a short steep climb onto the cliff tops. Some steps were cut here.

We achieved all this in three and a half hours, marking the route with pink ribbons, so it was nice having lunch on top looking back down the valley.

After lunch it was a short walk with a bit of gorse cutting out to the forestry road where we had a wee reopening and cutting of the ribbon ceremony. After all the work in the morning it was nice to have a walk up the road and onto South Peak for the great views of the coast and surrounds.

We then headed back down the road towards a fire break that leads down past the side of Ahns Peak, which we climbed to get a good view up Dave’s Track from the bottom.

As we passed the bottom entrance to Dave’s Track we had another short reopening ceremony before heading back out to the car park, with a short stop at Trotters Creek to cut back the gorse.

Thanks to Bill, John, Jane, Ross M, Maurice, Phyllis, Peter and Kate for all your work in making this a successful day.

Neville

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Hideaway Biv

Tuesday, January 12th, 2016

10^th January 2016

Arriving at the Ahuriri River on a sunny day with some wind, we crossed it 20 metres upstream from the vehicles. Rather than do the usual route to the run down hut a kilometre in from the river, we went straight towards the west side of the large hill which Hideaway Biv is tucked in behind. This avoided a dry swamp area with very uneven terrain. Around the back of the large hill, we continued along past the large tarn above the fenceline. There was birdlife on the tarn but not the numbers that I had seen on previous trips. Lunch at Hideaway Biv was delightful, taking in the history of names written on the corrugated iron in pencil. Lead pencils contain graphite and this reacts with the zinc coating on the corrugated iron, forming a metallic bond that cannot be erased. A former Governor General, Lord Bledisloe visited the hut in 1931. It is thought that the hut was built in the 1890s for musterers of Benmore Station.  Good to see it has had a revamp recently. We then walked around and over the top of the hill behind the hut and then back to the cars. Thanks for the company.

Linda, Jac, John, Bev, Jane, Ross F, Dean and Bess.

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Herbert Forest Working Bee

Wednesday, December 16th, 2015

22 November 2015

Four members in two vehicles arrived at the Breakneck Road gate at 8.15.  It was agreed that Tim and Bill would take the scrub cutter and deal to the gorse on the Swallows return loop while Robbie and John would head for Hoods Creek with the chainsaw and line trimmer.  Everyone would meet back at the gate at 2pm.

Starting from the top, Tim and Bill cleared the whole of the track through the gorse section on the upper part of the Swallows return loop using the scrub cutter and slasher.  Robbie and John cut and cleared all the windfalls on the Hoods Creek Track, working from both ends.  They also cut back the grass, blackberry and broom at both ends of Hoods Creek and the bottom entrance to Swallows.  This left the planned re-forming of the track across the replanted area at the south end of the Podocarp Track for another day.

A satisfactory day for the four who turned up.