Windy Tops

  • I always knew they were crazy people

    Not that it’s a bad thing.

    I was browsing Bob McKerrow’s weblog this morning, which is typically fascinating reading, and he’s pointed out a 2005 study by Erik Monasterio, a psychiatrist, who suggests that over a four year period, 8.2% of experienced New Zealand mountain climbers might have suffered fatal accidents — that’s a mortality rate of around 1 in 12 in four years. Bob has also noted, through several quotes, that New Zealand mountains can be exceptionally dangerous due to their proximity to marine weather patterns, but are often underestimated due to their low altitudes when compared with mountains overseas.

    The details of Erik Monasterio’s study were published in the New Zealand Medical Journal some time ago, and although it was intended to collect psychological characteristics of climbers, it also produced interesting (albeit very preliminary) results about accidents.
    (more…)

  • Recreational impressions of New Plymouth

    I’ve been back in Wellington for a week now, but I suppose there’s one lasting impression I wanted to express about Taranaki and specifically New Plymouth which I’ve now visited quite a few times over the last several years. Even when I haven’t gone tramping, I’ve always found it an easy place to get around and to enjoy walking. New Plymouth was recently named the winner of a Top Town competition in North & South magazine, and part of this decision was thanks to the recreational opportunities. I’m skeptical of these kinds of lists on principle because to me they feel like publicity stunts that get attention without much cost, but I do agree that New Plymouth has a lot going for it. There are plenty of places to escape the asphalt and the one and only shopping mall, and to enjoy natural surroundings.

    For outsiders, the obvious nearby recreation area is Egmont National Park, which has the usual range of back-country huts and trees and mountain scenery. Within New Plymouth, however, there are a lot of places where it’s possible to go walking.
    (more…)

  • Trip: Lake Dive to North Egmont

    I visited Eggie between Christmas and New Year, and stayed a couple of nights on the mountain. More specifically, I started around Lake Dive and Dawson Falls on the southern side, and made my way around to North Egmont via the eastern side. If you’re after a remote wilderness experience then Egmont National Park isn’t the easiest place to get one. It’s quite small, and very few parts of it (if any) are out of reach of daywalks, especially during the long days of summer. On the other hand, I think it’s definitely worth visiting. Egmont National Park is an isolated circle, literally. It’s as if someone took a compass on a flat topographical map, and drew a circle around the centre of the mountain to define the national park. Trees and native bush outside this line have been removed, and generally converted to farm-land.

    3162781788_bc396e274f_m-3497286
    Lake Dive in front of Egmont
    and Fanthams Peak.

    Dates: 28th – 30th December, 2008
    Location: Egmont National Park, Dawson Falls to North Egmont.
    People: Just me.
    Huts visited: Lake Dive Hut (1 night), Kapuni Lodge (0 nights), Hooker Shelter (0 nights), Waingongoro Hut (0 nights), Maketawa Hut (1 night).
    Route: Lake Dive Loop from Dawson’s Falls (lower track then upper track), then around the eastern side of Egmont from Dawson Falls to Maketawa Hut on the lower track, and out via North Egmont.
    [Photos]

    This post is a trip report. You can find other trip reports about other places linked from the Trip Reports Page, or by browsing the Trip Reports Category.
    3162714028_bca194a43c_m-3029183
    Mt Egmont seen from New Plymouth,
    with the Pouakai Range to the right.

    As with most parks in New Zealand, Egmont has its own colour and character; this park is sharply defined by a solo cone-shaped volcanic mountain in the middle. There is actually a mountain range going through Mount Taranaki/Egmont, which is the consequence of a slowly moving volcanic centre of which remnants can still be seen poking out of the sea off the coast of New Plymouth, then climbing to the south into the Pouakai Range, continuing through Egmont’s discrete 2518 metre peak, and finishing at Fanthams Peak on the southern slope, which is the consequence of the most recent volcanic action. Although it’s been relatively dormant in the past few hundred years, the park is dotted all over with massive domes and bluffs, all of which are symptomatic of the mountain’s violent and continuing volcanic history.

    (more…)

  • Daywalk: Pouakai Hut from Mangorei Road

    I’m presently in Taranaki, where Stacey’s family lives, so I’ve been going for walks around here in the last short while. A few days after I returned from a 2 night solo walk around another part of Egmont (which I’ll write up later), Barry (Stacey’s dad) took me for a quick walk up to Pouakai Hut this morning. I’ve been there before and it’s not really a daywalk so much as a before-lunch walk, but haven’t really written much about it so I thought I might note some things here for the record.

    Date: 1st January, 2009
    Location: Egmont National Park, Mangorei Road end to Pouakai Hut.
    People: Barry and Me.
    Huts visited: Pouakai Hut (0 nights).
    Route: From Mangorei Road up to Pouakai Hut and back.

    This post is a trip report. You can find other trip reports about other places linked from the Trip Reports Page, or by browsing the Trip Reports Category.

    (more…)

  • Yay for Taranaki

    I forgot to mention that we’re leaving to head up to Taranaki early’ish tomorrow where two different sides of Stacey’s family will be having two separate re-union things, and after that I’m hoping to get out for a couple of nights wandering somewhere in Egmont National Park, although so far I haven’t completely decided where. If the weather cooperates, it’s tempting just to try and find somewhere nice for fly-camping and sit around reading for a day or two, but I guess I’ll find out when I get there, and will write it up when I get back. I haven’t been getting out as frequently as I’ve wanted to lately, so I’m quite looking forward to it.

  • Photo competitions are intriguing

    A few weeks ago we had our trampey club’s annual photo competition, which is quite a lot of fun and it’s an excuse to see photos people have taken throughout the year. It’s the second photo competition the club’s run which I’ve entered, and the third (and last) to be judged by Shaun Barnett, who’s decided to focus on other things. Shaun authors and co-authors a variety of books about NZ tramping, typically full of photographs, and just recently he’s taken over as editor of the Federated Mountain Clubs Bulletin, which I bet is a lot of work considering he already judges lots of photo competitions for other clubs.

    I’m not a photographer by any stretch (even as a hobbyist), but I do like to wave my camera around a lot on tramping trips, and this is typical for the demographic of our own photo competition where the majority of people (but not everyone) are primarily interested in tramping, but might pull out a camera from time to time. My own current toy is a Canon Powershot A720IS, which is almost exactly the same as my previous Canon Powershot A710IS, but the A720 has less water inside so tends to switch on. It’s not a typical tramping camera in the sense of being shock-proof or water resistant or extremely light-weight (it’s about 300 grams), but it takes the best photos on short notice that I’ve been able to manage for any camera in its range with which I’ve had a chance to experiment, so I just try to be careful with it and avoid damaging it.
    (more…)

  • Buying packs and buying spinach

    Wow — the Tararuas have had three weekends of fantastic weather in a row, and I haven’t been there for any of them. I guess I did at least get out to the Ruahines a week ago, though. This Saturday and Sunday I stayed at home, however.

    For a while now, I’ve been keeping an eye out for a new pack to replace my disintegrating Macpac Glissade. It’s not really disintegrating, but I’ve patched it up with tape in a couple of places despite it only being a couple of years old. The major problem I’ve been having is that if and when I replace it, I want to make sure I’m getting something that I really want, and honestly there’s not a lot of selection in Wellington retailers right now as far as packs go. Just about everything is the same basic design, with pockets and openings all over the place. This is unfortunate because in essence I’m looking for a simple, relatively light single-access-point tramping pack without lots of zippers (which add weight unnecessarily) and without lots of bits hanging off it (which add more weight, and get caught on things).

    (more…)

  • Trip: Rangiwahia, Te Hekenga, Howletts and Heritage

    We finally managed to get around this scenic loop in the Ruahines, which is almost entirely made up of tops travel. It was a weekend of very nice weather, even though a light easterly in the Ruahines meant walking through some clag. For me personally, it was the first time I’ve connected the dots between two different sides in the Ruahines, having reached the same place from two different sides, and this felt quite rewarding.

    3092447970_02b24fc4d6_m-8040450
    Alistair collects water from one of the
    tarns on the way up Te Hekenga.

    Dates: 5th – 7th December, 2008
    Location: Ruahine Forest Park, Rangiwahia road-end to Heritage road-end.
    People: Alistair, Dirk, Paul, Amanda, Harry, Steve, Roger, Bernie and me.
    Huts visited: Rangiwahia Hut (1 night), Howletts Hut (1 night), Heritage Hut (0 nights).
    Route: Up to Rangiwahia on Friday night. On Saturday, walk past Maungamahue, around the back of Te Hekenga, then to Taumataomekura and Tiraha, and down Daphne Ridge to Howletts Hut for Saturday night. On Sunday, continue to Taumatataua, Otumore, and Tunupo, then descend to Heritage Lodge and out at the Heritage road-end.
    [Photos]

    This post is a trip report. You can find other trip reports about other places linked from the Trip Reports Page, or by browsing the Trip Reports Category.

    Levin is a good place to stop for dinner when driving north of Wellington up SH1 on Friday night. People often want to stop at Bulls because it has a kebab shop which some people like, but this time everyone agreed on Levin, and that suits me because I think there’s a wider variety of choices. There’s also a supermarket, which suited Alistair who was last back to the van, carting a 12-pack of toilet paper after he’d realised he never packed any.

    (more…)

  • New Walking, Cycling and Track Recreation policies approved for Wellington

    In September I noted that the Wellington City Council was consulting on its recreation activities policy. This has now progressed, and the warm and fluffy press release branch of the Wellington City Council has now announced that three new policy documents have now been adopted, respectively for Walking, Cycling and Track Recreation.

    In summary, the press release claims that the adopted policies are a beneficial improvement over the old policies, and that the “majority” of tracks around Wellington will now be shared for walking and cycling. Although I’m not personally involved in cycling, this sounds like a sensible idea to me, certainly as far as off-street tracks are concerned. People already ride mountain bikes in many places where they haven’t officially been supposed to according to local rules that (I think) are out of date, and it works out quite well, at least as far as I’ve seen.

    I meet a lot of cyclists out and about around Wellington tracks, and without many exceptions they’ve nearly always been happy and smiley and polite and very respectful to other track users. Furthermore, mountain bike enthusiasts in particular often tend to help with keeping some of the less popular walking tracks walkable… both actively and simply through using uncommon tracks more frequently. This includes a few that I like walking myself and would probably be overgrown with gorse much more quickly if they didn’t have the odd bike pushing through.

    The actual policies aren’t yet available for objective review because the changes are still being inserted and formatted and prepared for public view, and so on, but they should be available in due course. It’ll be worth taking a proper look at them when they’re available.

  • Daywalk: Walking the length of the Kaiwharawhara Stream

    I was supposed to be going up to Mt Ruapehu this weekend, but pulled out at the last minute because I’ve not been feeling too well over the last week. I wanted to try and get some fresh air when I woke up yesterday morning, though, so I thought I might have a go at walking along as much of the Kaiwharawhara Stream as I was able to.

    http://www.flickr.com/apps/video/stewart.swf?v=63881
    Bird songs near part of the Kaiwharawhara
    Stream in Otari Wilton’s Bush.

    The Kaiwharawhara Stream is one of the main water catchments flowing into Wellington Harbour, and it’s named after the suburb of Kaiwharawhara, where it finally exits into Wellington Harbour. It collects most of its water from around Karori and (especially after joining with the Korimako Stream) from many of the western suburbs of Wellington below Mt Kaukau. Its path through that part of Wellington is quite diverse. Some parts of the stream have a mildly remote feel to them, whereas others are heavily affected by built-up areas and the engineering projects that have caused it to be diverted and re-routed. Walking along it is a joining-the-dots exercise that I’ve wanted to do for a few months, and I’ve been waiting for a convenient time. Ultimately I found several places where it was impossible to follow because it was piped underground for long distances. In several places the stream had no formed track, and I gave up on following it directly once it seemed unlikely that it’d go anywhere except into another underground tunnel.

    Date: 22nd November, 2008
    Location: Wellington’s Western Suburbs, from Karori Wildlife Sanctuary to Kaiwharawhara.
    People: Just me.
    [Photos]

    This post is a trip report. You can find other trip reports about other places linked from the Trip Reports Page, or by browsing the Trip Reports Category.

    The main part of the catchment starts well up within the Karori Wildlife Sanctuary. There’s a charge to get into the sanctuary, and I’m also not 100% certain how accessible the stream is, so I instead decided to begin from just outside the sanctuary where the stream enters the free world. Note that I’ve put a lot more photos directly in this article than I usually do, because I think the photos tell much of the story of the changes in the stream from beginning to end.

    (more…)