Punters: Mike Gilbert, Ryan Day, Logan Day, Regine Deleu, Marloes Van Kleef.
Cellphone: You lose it just out of Carterton, never to be seen again apart from a smidge right on the top of the knoll if you're lucky.
Notes: Graded E because of the 3-5h route time, but Atiwhakatu Hut or Mt McKerrow this ain't. The track is unformed, rooty and slippery; there is lots of treefall to be negotiated; and you're always either slogging up to the 771m knoll or grinding your knees down from it. On both days. Navigation is fine with the track well defined and lots of orange markers. The actual start of the track isn't marked, though! Don't cross the river or head to Mangatarere Lodge at the road-end - stay on the true left bank and walk upstream to ford the river around 300m up - and you'll be fine from then on.
"The shaking hasn't stopped yet! Stay under your desks!" On a Friday afternoon before a tramping trip I wasn't expecting to be crouched on the ground hoping the ceiling didn't fall in. The tremors subsided and we slightly dazedly emerged to shocked co-workers, a lot of dust in the air but nothing visibly awry. Then the alarms went off. We piled outside to the waiting TV One cameras and eventually got told to go home and look after our families.
With a forecast of rain and gales, plus a magnitude-6 earthquake to deal with, I expected a big attrition rate from our Sayer Hut trip. But trampers are made of sterner stuff than that, and come Saturday morning we were all raring to go.
Ryan and Logan went ahead in Logan's mighty Mitsubishi V3000, old and unbreakable, that we learned had traded amongst his family for a standard price of $200 several times. Régine, Marloes and I followed on in our car.
There's no point in roughing it until you have to, so Saturday morning breakfast was not cold muesli with reconstituted milk, but salmon on sourdough and espresso from the French patisserie in Greytown. I couldn't resist slipping a tuna mayo roll from there into my pocket too, to replace the OSM that was going to be my lunch. I think that I tend to tramp one of two ways – either the bare minimum OSM-and-Backcountry-meal way, or the full-on, foodie way. Either time and weight is important, or it's not.
Mangatarere Roadend is a place less travelled, and less fashionable than its cooler younger sisters like Holdsworth and Waiohine. It's at the end of a long, winding road that goes to gravel pretty quickly, narrows to one lane wide with lots of blind corners. Angela, Vivienne, Benjamin and Andrew had been down this way a couple of years before (http://tararualite.blogspot.co.nz/2012/03/sayer-hut.html) so I was a little forewarned. There was a concrete ford that had been half washed away; would it be fixed? We saw that the council had indeed solved the problem – they had put up a big sign saying 'End of Council Maintained Road' just before it. But someone had built up the broken concrete bits with gravel so it was navigable. However, when we reached the roadend we dubiously eyed the pouring rain and decided discretion was the better part of finding a raging torrent that we couldn't get our cars back through on the Sunday. So back we went and left our cars safe and sound on the other side of the ford. It was only a short walk back anyway.
We headed off in steady rain that didn't dampen our spirits. It was still warm and calm, and our gear kept us warm and dry. After a short piece of indecision about which way to go – you stay on your side of the river, not crossing a rickety bridge to Mangatarere lodge – we were soon ascending the slippery, muddy ridge that would bring us to the unnamed knoll.
We rapidly formed two groups – Logan, Marloes and Ryan forming the advance party and Régine and I bringing up the rear. While the Sayer Track is a short walk at 3-5 hours, it's a bit of a surprise for trampers accustomed to easy tracks. Roots, mud and treefall, not to mention that for almost all of that time you're grunting up to the unnamed 771m knoll and then torturing your knees on the descent, make it a challenging few “easy” hours.
As the last party had warned us, there was plenty of big trees down over the track to climb around and over. Someone had been through with a chainsaw though, and cleared the worst of it, but not all of it. All the fallen trees seemed to be the same age, so we debated: why would you carry a chainsaw in but not clear everything you could with it?
The rain didn't abate but neither did the warm and still conditions so it was certainly not unpleasant to walk in. Forest ranged from mighty towering beech forest to lower shrubby bush to beautiful goblin forest. The misty rain gave it an ethereal quality where you could imagine dryads and pixies just out of sight, laughing and giggling at these unlikely interlopers in their midst.
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| Well, someone built this mask, didn't they? |
Soon we were on the top ridge and passing '771m knoll', unnamed and unmarked. The DOC person assigned the job of track marking had celebrated this peak in their own way by putting up a plethora of orange markers but otherwise it was unremarkable.
Then it was down and down and down, interminably down. Knees begged the hut to be near. The whole walk was in beautiful forest but with only a few chances to peek out at tree clad and mist framed peaks and valleys. But eventually and abruptly we met Sayer Creek and the Waiohine River flat. A short skip down the blissfully flat track led to a peek of corrugated iron and a rustic old hut in a clearing. The rain had eased during our descent, and we reached the hut in clear weather.
What a wonderful hut! Though fixed and added to and changed over the decades, this hut has the same structure as it did when built at the turn of the 20th century. Rough sawn and hand shaped wood and logs abounded, and a range of road signs and farm business advertisements showed that cheeky thieves have been with us forever.
Ryan, Logan, Marloes were already there and waiting for us with a blazing fire that Logan tended to it all night. A curious lack of an axe made things harder, but a combination of jumping on logs and carefully arranging them in the fireplace got us through.
It was only mid afternoon so we went exploring our surroundings. The Waiohine River was well up, with strong flow and whitecaps in the main channel, and crossing it wasn't an option. No chance to explore Totara Flats or anything like that. (It could be possible to bush-bash up our side of the river to the Totara Flats footbridge, but we didn't try that). There was a big grassy area near the hut that would be perfect for camping, and plenty of fire sites attested to people doing just that. Plenty of bones also showed some successful hunting had gone on.
We started dinner early. I'd chosen Chicken Fettuccine from the never-fail Aunty Rata's WTMC Cook Book and it worked perfectly - prepped with Ryan's disturbingly comprehensive selection of knives, heated on my K-mart butane stove and simmered on Ryan's genuine Trangia meths burner. Our only issue was that we had too many mushrooms, which Marloes and Regine dealt to expertly as an hors d'ouevres.
Ryan had a delight of a dessert prepared for us. It was lots of fun toasting the marshmallows in the fire - we all had different techniques and different tastes (firm or gooey? Gently baked or sauteed with a dark crust?) and the toffee pop melted marshmallow sensation that resulted was yummy!
MoreThanSmoresIt was now getting very late, maybe approaching 8:00pm, and the weather had cleared to a beautiful evening with stars shining over our little valley. Of course at such a late hour we were getting tired and one by one slipped off to bed. Ryan made a somewhat disturbing find of a well mummified rat squeezed in between his bunk and the wall; he threw it on the fire and it quietly charred away.
Chef: Ryan Day
2 X Marshmallows (1 Pink, 1 White recommended) toasted until hot and gooey over a fire (take your time, and don't burn them!), then place them between two original Toffee Pops (do not use dark or butterscotch Toffee Pops, as they are abominations). The best approach is to "sandwich" the marshmallows between the Toffee Pops to remove them from the roasting stick.
Toffee Pops may be substituted with Chocolate thins (you can pack more in a small pack) or, for classic smores, chocoloate digestives as they are about as close to Gram crackers as you can get in NZ.
Everybody reported a fantastic night's sleep in the complete quiet and total darkness of Sayer Hut. I did awake a couple of times to find the hut gently shaking. Aftershocks were continuing, but it was reassuring to be in a hut that had experienced far worse than that in its 100 years of existence.
Sunrise saw us up and preparing our eclectic variety of breakfasts. I had the dubious but compact treat of an Apricot One Square Meal; Regine tucked into a packet of leftover rice crackers; Ryan produces a complete cooked breakfast of beef and eggs with baked beans, dehydrated and packed into a Backcountry Meal pack! It looked disgusting but smelt and I'm sure tasted good.
We foraged for firewood to more than replace the substantial pile we'd burned through over yesterday afternoon - it's good going to a rarely visited hut because there was plenty of wood around. We cleaned up, and then set off as the same two parties that we'd formed on the way in. There was only one way out - the same way we went in, and over the same 771m knoll. I built a cairn at the top from what rocks and branches I could find - it seemed to need more than just a few orange triangles to mark the achievement of summitting it. The rain had returned, along with a chill breeze - the top of the knoll was the first and only time I felt a little cold, and put on a layer or two of merino.
The descent was muddy and slippery but went quickly. Again, all of a sudden we were at the Mangaterere Stream that signalled the end of our descent and the short flat walk back out to the car.
The ford we were nervous about was indeed up and fast flowing, probably still passable but I was glad I didn't have to try. My Corolla doesn't like to swim.
We quickly changed into (mostly) dry clothes and piled into the mostly dry car. Engine on and heater on full - we headed to the Greytown cafe where the cafe owner took pity on us and gave us our very own heater. Soup and wedges got us warm and comfortable and ready for the drive home.
Sayer Hut really is something special, and visiting it on a rainy weekend made it even more so. As the rain clattered on the tin roof, the ghosts of farmers, hunters and trampers past kept us warm, dry and safe. It definitely should be on your list of huts you have to spend the night in before you die.
Photos: http://www.meetup.com/WellingtonTrampingGroup/photos/16777072/
What a great blog!
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