By Justin Atkinson, 12 April 2025
With the beautiful Tararua hills coming alive with the ROARs of VUWTC trampers for Bag All the Huts 2025, our small group of 5 headed up the Akatarawa Valley to the southwestern part of the Ranges. We were scheduled to visit 3 huts: Renata, Waiotauru, and Kapakapanui.
In tow were Liam, Oscar, Vita, Tobi, and Justin. We were to split into two groups, with Vita and Tobi bringing their bikes for a day trip to Renata, with the others staying overnight there and at Kapakapanui. After meeting a friendly group of Akatarawa cyclists, we headed up a 4WD track we thought was in pretty good nick. It started off fine, but we soon came to a seemingly impassable knee deep mega-puddle. Liam was terrified of catching an infection, but we somehow clambered to the other side.
The puddles reduced in size as the track continued, but it eventually became clear to Vita and Tobi they wouldn't make it much further cycling. The track had many steep rocky sections, which didn't make for a fun ride. They decided to backtrack to the road and embark on another Tararuas misadventure, but that's a whole other story you can find elsewhere in Heels and on our website vuwtc.org.nz!!
The remaining crew of Liam, Oscar and Justin walked for several more hours. We did not actually say goodbye to the bike gang, so we had to hope they were alive. We eventually found a wide gully with cellphone reception and an abandoned car wreck down a very steep cliff face. Now this was an opportunity that Liam could not resist, so he clambered down the slope and found an eight year expired bottle of hand sanitiser. What an alcoholic drink to risk your life for!
We reached a junction that heralded the end of the 4WD track. A 45min side track of your classic Tararua bush followed, and we arrived at Renata Hut. We weren't alone. A friendly couple had hiked in from our end destination, Kapakapanui. Their first question was "are you from the Victoria University of Wellington Tramping Club?!" They had seen our club's promo of Bag all the Huts on Facebook, and so we filled them in on the details. We had a toasty fire and slight water poisoning that evening...
We arose the next morning with a long day ahead of us. We returned to the 4WD track, where a group of hunters awaited. Unlike *some* hunters who had complained online about Bag All the Huts *interrupting* the Pongaroar hunting event, they were completely unaware of our club's forest park-wide mission and thought it was pretty awesome. They gave us some track advice, before driving off on their ATVs. After a couple hours of downhill 4WD track and a few stream crossings, we arrived at Waiotauru Hut. It is said by some to be the worst hut in the Tararuas. We didn't think it was the nicest hut ever, but it certainly wasn't the absolute worst.
We then scrambled up a nearby spur to save several hours in getting to our final hut, Kapakapanui. The hill was not too overgrown, but at times we lost each other. The best solutions to this problem were to scream from deep within ourselves, and to play the Marco Polo game. After a couple hours, we arrived at the Kapakapanui ridge track bang on with a track marker. A winding ascent to Kapakapanui Peak (1102m) followed, where we had a beautiful moon and sunset vista over the Tararuas and out to the Kāpiti Coast. We could even spot Taranaki Maunga in the distance!
The darkness enclosed our final hour to Kapakapanui, which was made more difficult by Liam having forgotten his headtorch. We found two guys at the 6-bunk hut, which left more than enough spots for us. We tiredly said hello, before a quick dinner and bed.
The next day was a relatively straightforward 3.5hr descent to the road end. This featured many day walkers and several dogs. We annoyingly had to dash back to the hut after forgetting to take our group photo, but fortunately this happened at the start! 9 mostly dry river crossings polished off our backcountry trek. An hour-long stretch of backcountry road was between us and Waikanae, but thanks to Oscar's incredible charm we got a lift with the first car we saw. Fish and chips and milkshakes were a wonderful to celebrate the end of our tramp (along with finally establishing what happened to Tobi and Vita!).
