Last weekend we visited the Kashmir road-end on the eastern side of the Ruahine Range, which I hadn’t visited since I went up to Longview Hut on a WTMC club trip near the end of 2006. Our group planned to go some distance further than Longview this time, and on to Howletts Hut which is quite a lot further into the range.

Frosted alpine grasses just
below Otumore.

Dates: 29th – 31st August, 2008
Location: Ruahine Forest Park, Kashmir Road-end.
People: John, Alistair, Sarah, Paul, Pete and me.
Huts visited: Longview Hut (1 night), Howletts Hut (1 night).
Intended Route: Camping at Kashmir on Friday night, up to Longview then down to a short river walk up to Daphne Hut (brrrr, cold), then up to Howletts for Saturday night. Return the same way.
Actual Route: We actually walked to Longview for Friday night, then went direct to Howletts over the tops via Taumatataua and along Daphne Ridge for Saturday night. Returned the same way over the tops.
[Photos and movies]
[More photos (from Pete)]

The Kashmir road-end is more or less a dead-end and although DOC has been nice enough to provide a dunny at the end of the road, it isn’t surrounded by much in the way of good camping sites. There might be some possible camping just inside the start of the track, and it also looked possible to set up a tent fly or two under the pine trees a few hundred metres back along the road. Having driven up from Wellington on a Friday night, however, our plan had been to set up a camp at one of the private farms down the road, after gaining permission to do so. (Being in a club’s great when you have those kinds of contacts.) Turning up at 11pm, though, we were having second thoughts about camping at the road-end at all.
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