By DominicOberhumer, 02 September 2014
Most trips into the Kawekas involve clear skies, good views,
lovely hot pools and relaxing with a choice beverage or five. This was nothing
like that at all.
This was the third club trip I’d been on, the first was
Freshers which apparently didn’t really count and the second was an overly
ambitious trip to Maungahuka and that didn’t work out so well. The plan this
time around seemed flawless in its simplicity; there were hot pools and we were
going to them, marvellous. The car ride was long but I spent it asleep so can’t
really complain there.
Trouble started when we reached a river we were supposed to
cross in the cars. I later learned that there was a metal pole in that river:
bottom half painted white, top half painted red with the implication that one
should not attempt to cross if the water reached the red. We could not see said
pole on this particular day so plans had to change. We agreed to head to
another road end from where we could head out along the tops and ridgelines of
the Kawekas and there was a hut five minutes from the road we could stay in
that night. Things still sounded pretty good, we just accepted that we wouldn’t
need our togs after all and tried to put out from our minds the reason for the
rivers being so high.
We didn’t sleep in the hut (Makahu Saddle Hut) but for a
cause still unclear to me decided to set up flies to sleep under. There were
nine of us but we had large flies and tarps so we figured it’d be fine. We
cooked up a meal and got into our sleeping bags at 6pm, we didn’t get out of
them till 8am the next day.
It had been wet throughout the night, it hadn’t been raining
or anything, it was just wet, really wet. We packed up, had breakfast and
started walking, the weather decided to remain wet. We strolled up to Kaweka J
and in the process experienced several types of the “are we there yet?”
question: first joking then genuine then desperate. When we reached the top
there was nothing to see and it had started to rain in that most fantastic of
directions: horizontally. The next four of five hours were a complete blur.
There was rain, there were rocks underfoot, there was rain, there was a
complete lack of views and there was rain. We may have stopped to eat at some
point and we may have talked a little but mostly we just put our heads down and
walked. For not the first and certainly not the last time on a tramping trip I
thought to myself “Am I actually enjoying this? Is this supposed to be fun? Are
the people around me having fun? They don’t look like they are. Is this perhaps
a little dangerous too?”
I learnt two things that day 1) Good friends are made in bad
conditions. 2) Calling anything waterproof is laughably arrogant… and just
plain incorrect.
We finally ended up scrabbling down a rocky slope towards
Ballard Hut, sure it was a four bunk hut and there were nine of us but we were
bedraggled and it had a roof and better yet a fire. I arrived at the hut first
and put my head through the door. Two hunters stared back at me, clearly
bewildered that anyone would have the audacity to walk here and join them in
this weather. “Uhm, would you guys mind if another nine people were to come in
here?” I asked trying to sound as unimposing as a person can under such
circumstances. The bewildered stares were now accompanied by hanging jaws as a
response. “Well ahh, six of them are girls if that, um makes it any better” I
had no idea what I was meant to say but felt that somehow that fact might help
things along. One of hunters retained his blank stare whilst the other gave me
a more interesting look. It was a look that suggested that not only did he
believe that I was pulling his leg but that at this point he thought the entire
universe was taking the piss. “Ok, well, we’ll just let ourselves in then” I
said quietly as I realised there was a queue forming behind me outside the hut.
So in we walked and that was that.
We hung up or wet clothing, went about making dinner and
then sat around the hut drinking and chatting and laughing until we went to
sleep. Two of our group slept outside in a tent, some of us double bunked and
some of us slept on the floor.
The next day was miserable in the morning but much better
from just before midday onwards, we still got no views but we were lower down
and everything was just far more pleasant. There were river crossings and
valleys to walk into and out of and it was all just quite nice. Someone assumed
that I knew how to navigate by map so I ended up doing a bit of that though
I’ve no idea when or where I learnt to do so. We got back to the car park in
reasonable time and though we were a little tired everyone seemed pretty
pleased with the experience. It was a good trip.
With: Pia, Dana, Sacha, Joe, Ashley, Mae, Dom, Anita and
Anna.