I’d not heard of Mt Frith until recently. When I first learned of its existence I thought it was a typing mistake, but it turns out it’s a destination on the fringes of the Tararua Range. It has a sign and everything.
I’ve been hoping to get out some more with the local tramping club again for a while, though, so I put my name onto this excursion into a space on the south-eastern fringes of the Tararua Range.
Date: 9th May, 2026.
Location: Tararua Forest Park, Bucks Road Campsite.
People: Tony, Jono, Karen, Emily, Iain, Katie, Rachel, Sam and me.
Route: Start at Bucks Road behind Featherston, climb route along ridge to Mt Finis, then return.
We left Wellington Railway Station shortly after 7.30am, to drive across the Remutaka Hill Road and eventually outward to the campsite at the end of Bucks Road behind Featherston, which is alongside where the Tauwharenikau River exits the range.
Oddly, on this occasion, we could have stopped at the lookout at the top of the Remutaka Hill Road and merely walked across to Mt Frith. I think this marks one of very few occasions when I can think of driving to the bottom of a hill in order to walk to the top of it.
This is an entrance to the Tararua that I’ve never been to before. The main officially recognised tracks climb up the ridge past Mt Frith and parallel to the Remutaka Hill Road, connecting into the lookout, and also down to the Kiwi Ranch Road area of Upper Hutt, although they’re not directly connected to other tracks in the range. I assume there are several possible nav routes down into Smith Creek and the Tauwharenikau Valley, though.
Saturday morning was very windy, with splatterings of rain, and frequent rainbows. It wasn’t terribly cold, but we were concerned we might struggle in the wind higher up. With 10 of us in the group, we began walking shortly before 9am, then backtracked after a few minutes as we relised we’d missed the obvious sign pointing to Mt Frith, and we actually following a short track down to the river.
At a relatively slow pace, at about 9.30am and after some climbing, we reached the track junction where the Tauwharenikau Gorge Track veers off to the west, and drops back down to the river.
There was great shelter from the northerly in the trees, but we could hear they were still getting a battering high up from the wind. 20 minutes later we broke into more scrubby land, and it was about this time that one of the group recognised he was really struggling, and it wouldn’t be a good idea to continue. After some discussions, Tony and Jono helped him back down to the campsite and drove him to Featherston, with an intent that they’d return later and follow us back up.
The remaining 7 of us continued the climb, which rapidly became windy and wet, but still with adequate visibility of the inland Tararua Range, as well as occasional views over the Wairarapa plains.
Before arriving we’d been concerned about the amount of gorse and generally weeds, although on the whole I don’t think it was a significant problem. I’m unsure of the history but the area has the feel of a place that’s been grazed in the past.
The main track was certainly surrounded by gorse and blackberry and what seems like relatively recent regrowth. There were many light brushings with sharp things, and on one occasion I also managed to tear my new raincoat on what must have been a sharp tree branch. I’ve since returned it to the Macpac shop for repair, and further inspection revealed that whatever it was went through sharply enough to cut through the skin just below my shoulder. All that said, it looks like those volunteers of the Greater Wellington Backcountry Network have been doing a nice job of helping to keep it pegged back (thanks!).
A couple of junctions are shown with roads to the south, first just south-east of .505 and second about 1 km west of that. Both of these mapped roads seem to be in the vicinity of a private land parcel that the conservation park scoots around the edge of. We didn’t see either road, if they still exist at all, although the place where there might have been a junction with the first, at the top of the climb towards .505, was marked with a large orange triangle for no obvious reason.
At about 11.30am we reached the minor track junction which enables scooting off a couple of hundred metres to the south of the main track to find Finis (.577). This track was very invaded by gorse, and I think those of us who ventured that way, with shorts, came back with many scratches. Now I can say I’ve been there, though.
Rather than climbing straight up, the track spends a certain amount of time undulating along what’s roughly flat. It was a bit over another hour, at our relatively slow pace, when we finally reached Mt Frith.
It wasn’t really until we began climbing the final leg that the place began to feel like more traditional Tararua bush for the first time on the trip, with taller beech trees, crown ferns and other surrounding flora. I checked my LINZ Topo50 BP33 Featherston (published 2009) map a few times which indicated we should be on a vehicle track. This scramble up a hill under trees definitely wasn’t a vehicle track, and it was hard to believe it ever could have been. I’ve since noted that modern Topo50 renditions don’t show it as a road.
The top is marked by a sign on a tree, but it’s not really at the top. Slightly above the sign it’s possible to climb out of the trees into a rocky plateau of sorts. It reminded me a bit of Mt McKerrow in the Remutaka Range, which you arrive at and discover the only distinguishing feature amongst the trees is a pole in the ground… and then you have to start thinking “well, maybe the journey was more important than the destination”.
By now it was approaching 1pm but we didn’t hang around there for lunch with another band of rain coming through. Instead we retreated back down through the trees to look for a more comfortable space to stop and eat, and hopefully have a break in the rain. Most of us eventually found a space a couple of hundred meters west of .513, and stopped for a brief lunch.
As we were leaving, we encountered Tony and Jono who, having returned from Featherston and started climbing again. They’d already been to Finis and, after a quick discussion, they decided not to bother continuing to Mt Frith, and accompanied us back on the way down through the chilly but retreating wind and rain.
Most of the group went ahead, as the group was moving fairly slowly, although I stayed back for a bit waiting for Rachel to catch up after she’d stopped further back for her own lunch. She arrived after about 20 minutes, and as we’re both relatively quick, we’d caught up again within an hour for the final drop back to the Bucks Road Campsite. Walking in this direction affords a few nice views down to the river from high above.
I’m glad I went to check out Mt Frith. It’s not a typical Tararua destination, but there were some nice views to see both outwards to the flats of the Wairarapa and inwards over the Tauherenikau River as it makes its way out to Featherston, and beyond to the inner parts of the range behind.
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