By Connor Sheppard, 01 February 2025
Four VUWTC Trampers trekked up to Cattle Ridge Hut for the night, and five VUWTC trampers walked back to the car that day. With the goals of bagging Herepai and Roaring Stag along the way, and for me to have led an overnight tramp for Gold Duke of Edinburgh.
We headed off early from Hunter Carpark to get through the 2+ hour drive, the only hinderance being some people forgot to pack their snacks :/. Some members fell asleep on the way to the start, but they woke up immediately when we arrived so they must have felt the tramping spirit! We put on sunscreen the walked over the bridge then alongside the river. It was pretty chill, compared to the next uphill bit we had, but definitely was not the worst to come! We decided to walk straight to Roaring Stag and bag Herepai tomorrow, as we did not want to get rained on! The walk to Roaring Stag was shorter than expected, and pretty flat for Tararua Standards! Duke of Edinburgh meant we could not use GPS, so we did put our old-school map and compass reading to use along the way!
We had a short break at Roaring Stag for lunch, and then made our way up that 800m elevation to Cattle Ridge. That was tough! Non-stop going up and up and up. Including having to bypass or walk around trees and vertical parts that were practically climbing! And we had a trip member with a bad ankle! Two-thirds in, we used our now superb map-reading skills to assess where we were, and with an estimated 200m uphill left and out of the bushline, we continued trudging. We were very exhausted by the time we made it to Cattle Ridge, but it was right before it started raining so it was well-earnt!
In the hut we met Alan who had been in the Tararuas for 4 days at that point, including through a storm! There was also an international tramper there who had planned to stay at all the Tararua Huts in one go, who had been relying on other trampers for food. I hope he was successful in that! We cooked spaghetti bolagnese for dinner which was delicious, and we had an early night to prepare for the next day.
The next day we walked down that steep track fairly quickly, with Alan sprinting down ahead of all of us (he still had all that energy after trekking from Otaki Forks to over the peak of Dundas)! It felt great to walk through the part of the walk that almost made us pass out! The only hard bits were the trees blocking the path again. After another short break at Roaring Stag, we kept trekking on, had lunch along the way, and made it to the Herepai Junction. We chose to still try and bag it, but because we wanted to be quick, we hid our bags behind some trees near the junction and dashed over to the hut and bag. Success! 3/3 huts bagged! We walked our way back to the carpark, still slightly ahead of schedule! I was a little worried that I would not make it to my evening picnic with friends at Kapiti, but then there were traffic delays on state highway 2. Damn it! But everyone still got dropped off in reasonable time, and I made it to my picnic 30 minutes late!
Overall, it was a super fun tramp and I'm glad it was my practice journey for Duke of Ed! We got to challenge ourself with a route with great elevation gains, and no reliance on GPS! And it was awesome to be trip leading a group that was so tenacious and enthusiastic!