Easter in the Kawekas... Two Days in a Stream
by Hazel Bidmead

“Apparently there’s an old track over the ridge.” Everyone looked at the gorge and then at me as I joined Kieran, Andy, Tahu and Alan beside the Mangatainoka ‘stream’ and had a look at the map. “You’d rather go over the top, wouldn’t you?” Someone said to me. I wasn’t going to deny it, I’m not particularly keen on swimming with a pack. After a moments silence Tahu said the obvious, they’d all prefer to stay in the river, so we gave it a go. The first 50 meters weren’t too bad, nevertheless the first corner brought us to the top of a small waterfall, which required a change in plan. We scrambled up the bank and pushed through some nasty scrub until we could crash down the other side. I’m not a great fan of river travel, but it sure was nice to get out of the scrub and back into the stream!

The first two days of our tramp were fairly ‘uneventful.’ We started at the Makahu road end in the Kaweka forest park and walked in to Tira Lodge, via Middle Hill Hut, taking about 6 hours in total. Day two saw us loosing most of the 1000m we had gained on day one. We had lunch at Te Puke hut and after soaking up some sun for a while we continued on past Harkness hut, and up the valley. We arrived at Tussock hut about 5pm (8 ½ hours after leaving Tira Lodge) having crossed the stream up Harkness valley about 100 times.

For me the 3rd day was divided into three distinct parts – tussock, bush and river. The first hour through the tall tussock left us all rather damp as it had been raining over night and it was nice to get into the bush where it felt more open (odd, I know) – at least until we got to the top of the ridge. The bush had it’s own challenges, although we managed to follow the markers most of the time and only lost the ‘track’ a couple of times. When we arrived at the bottom of the ridge we left behind the faint signs of the track we had been following along with the last of the track markers. And so started our travel down the Mangatainoka stream. Right from the start the stream was slippery and I think everyone slipped over at least once – Kieran certainly did a dance in the river – and everyone was wet from the waist down by the time we left the Mangatainoka stream behind. At some point on the third day we arrived at the Mangatainoka hut, where we had lunch. The hut is mainly used by hunters (it’s not exactly the most accessible if you don’t have a helicopter), and I think I was the first female there in a while. After lunch we continued down the river for a couple of hours, clambering over log jams and through the bush where it looked like there was some sort of trail, but mostly we just walked down the river bed.

Just after Tahu pointed out a deer that was about 40m away we heard a hunter’s whistle from the direction the deer bolted in. We never saw the hunter but we camped further down stream than we otherwise would have, as no one wanted to spend the night near the hunters.

The last day involved another 3 hours down the stream followed by a nice long soak in the hot pools. We then had a couple of hours walking along a good track past Te Puia Lodge out to Gums car park, and a very long drive home.

In total we spent about 8 hours walking the 16km down the Mangatainoka stream. I haven’t done much off-track tramping (or river travel) and it’s not something I’d normally be all that keen to do, but it was interesting to do something different and go somewhere I haven’t been before. It was a great trip (the memories of pain are fading fast) and I’ll never forget the two days in the stream, the soak in the hot pools or the many games of cards.