Aspiring National Park, East Matukituki
Otago Aniversary Weekend, 17-20 March 2017
Six of us set off on Friday night for the Albert town Camping ground in Wanaka. With the weather looking good we were all looking forward to a good weekend in Mt Aspiring National Park. We stopped at Omarama for tea and got to Albert town about 9.30pm and set up our tents except one of our member who decided to sleep outside but with the rain during the night he soon retreated to the back seat of my truck.
On Saturday morning we packed up and headed for the National Park and on the way meeting Jane M in Wanaka so our party was now seven. We parked up at the swing bridge that goes over the Matukituki river just passed Cameron flat. There was a bit of light rain but that soon cleared as we headed up the east branch of the Matukituki river valley towards Aspiring flats. The first hour was over farm land till we reached the Glacier Burn river swing bridge and then we followed a rough marked track through the bush on the true right of the east Matukituki river. It was slow going in places but finally we reach Junction flat at about 3pm and then it was the final slog for another 1 ¼ hours up the Kitchener river to Aspiring flats.
We found a good sheltered camp spot about 500m after coming out of the bush and everybody was happy to get their packs off and set up camp. About an hour after we got there 24 members of the Otago Tramping club emerged out of the bush and set up camp further up the valley. We then settled in for the night with some of us playing cards and a few camp songs sung before headed to bed after a big day.
On the Sunday it dawned with low cloud in the Valley. We decided that today we would go for a walk up to the head of the valley and the Turnbull Thompson Falls in the morning and then have a look up the Rainbow Stream in the afternoon. We set off by crossing the Kitchener River and heading up the flats towards the head of the valley. The low cloud was starting to lift a bit giving us some great views of the 2700m mountains surrounding us and the Kitchener Cirque. On the way we stopped and checked out the Rock of Age Biv and signed the visitor’s book. This rock biv has a fire place and it is said it will sleep 20 people but would only keep about 4 people dry if it rained. We then carried on up the river flats to where the valley narrowed up a bit. We found a track through the bush at first and then out over a slip and then it was down into the river with big boulders trying to find a way up to the falls. We got to about half a km from the falls but the boulders were getting bigger and the rock pools were getting deeper and it was taking longer than we thought so we headed back to camp for lunch.
After lunch five of us headed up Rainbow Stream that meet the Kitchener River opposite our camp. The first part of the stream is over river rocks but us we got further up the steam the rocks got bigger and then we were climbing our way through a maze of rocks as big as house’s. After about 1 ½ hours we climbed up on to a grasses knob to where we could see the head of the steam and the way up to Wilmot Pass. By this time the wind was starting to pick up so it was back down the steam to camp. That night it was quite windy and we were watching some waterfalls coming off the mountains getting blown back up.
Monday morning we were up about 7am, packed up camp and off back down the track by 8.15am. We stopped for lunch at the Glacier Burn River where we could get a view up the Glacier Burn to the Avalanche Glacier and then back at the Vehicles by 2pm. It was then back to Wanaka for a short stop before heading home. I would like to thank everybody that came along for a great weekend, great views and great company.
John C, Mark B, Matt D, Jane G, Jen F and Jane M – Neville
