By Justin Atkinson, 30 August 2024
Nine brave souls departed from the Hunter carpark on a Friday morning for an intended 3 day, 2 night visit to the Ruahines: Justin, Luke, Ben, Imogen, Liam, Koi, Anita, Cara, and Davy.
With good weather on the drive up via Dannevirke (minus a few washouts from the Manawatu River), we reached the Sunrise Hut road end after a 3.5hr drive. The sky started a campaign of rain as we arrived, but nevertheless we decided to attempt the 3 hour hike to Sunrise Hut instead of staying at the road end hut.
This was just off the path so we missed it on the way up, leading to a debate over its name for the whole trip. Some official sources said Triple X, others said Triplex; one annoying group member said Tri-plex. Turned out it was Triple X, after a pilot who crashed nearby and was never found, minus a t-shirt with 3 Xs on it.
The rain was on and off. At its worst it was sleet. The track was gentle and gradual, completely in the bushline until the end. We reached Sunrise in 2 and a bit hours, situated at 1280m above sea level, and warmed up with a nice fire. A 20 bunk hut, we were the first but by no means last group to spend the night there. A solo tramper from Christchurch and four Mexican tourists joined us after dark.
We played several highly dramatic and vicious games of Mafia, before plotting our schemes for the next day. We had signal, which revealed that Saturday would be windy but fine. However, 100-130km/h winds and a heavy dumping of rain were scheduled for Sunday. We sadly decided it would be best to return to Wellington the next day.
We woke up early hoping for a great sunrise, but it was simply mediocre (photo makes it look better than it was). To our surprise, a group of four women from Napier appeared at 7am, having left home at 3am for a chill early morning hike. Within an hour they were gone!
We had planned to walk 2-3 hours return to the historic Top Maropea Hut further along the saddle. However, the wind was way too strong to attempt that safely. We had fun hanging onto a gusty outcrop by the hut though! We headed halfway back to the carpark, before turning onto a side track down to the Waipawa River. This section took 45 minutes. It was higher than usual, but still safe to cross.
Some of us walked 10 minutes to Waipawa Forks Hut on the opposite side, where we encountered some super experienced hikers from Canterbury who were former members of CUTC and had visited hundreds of huts. We warmly discussed our outdoor experiences with each other. They detailed their involvement in Twalk, and kindly asked about our yearbook Heels. We had left a copy at Sunrise, where incidentally they were heading next!
Most of us decided to walk down the river to the carpark after the Cantabrians recommended it, while a few returned via the track. The river route took us a couple hours, with several trickyish sections and much practice of the mutual support technique. Some of us dashed off to bag Triple X hut, a 5-10min walk from the carpark. We then said our farewells and headed home, just encountering the beginning of that weekend's rainstorm as we passed through Porirua!
