By Felicity Wills, 11 April 2025
This 'Bag All the Huts', Finlay and I were keen for a mission, and that is exactly what we were given. This was a crazy, crazy trip, but I will try to keep it short (and probably fail).
Day 1: Uni lab (Finlay and I drew some fish) -> 2 hr car ride -> leave Kiriwhakapapa car park at 3 pm. Bagged blue range and walked the last hr to Cow Creek hut in the dark (was spooky and fun).
Day 2: Walk the “worst track in the Tararua ranges” (we can confirm) to Arete Forks hut -> Climb 700m for 2.5hrs ish (some full-on rock climbing involved) -> see one of the most spectacular sunsets of my life before arriving at arete biv, and were surprised to find Jack (hut was full, so had to tent… chilly).
Day 3: Crossed the Waiohine pinnacles to Tarn Ridge hut (met some high hunters who told us not to drink the tarns, which we noted) -> continued along the tops to Dorset Ridge hut (thought I was gonna pass out, but once there, some other hunters gave us beer)
Day 4: ….. let’s just say don’t underestimate the wind (very scary). Deciding we didn't want an early start on day 3 to go over the tops limited our choices once we had to consider the weather the next day (day 4). If we weren't on a hut bagging trip, we would have skipped Dorset and mid-king and gone straight to mitre via the peak. That leads to us staying at Dorset, where the next day (day 4), we cut down to the creek and bashed our way up to South King. Once we broke the bushline, we were notified by Kate about the 65 km/h gales and we felt that it wasn't that windy... We headed on, and even as we entered the cloud, we still felt reasonably confident. However, as we reached the top of South King, the wind intensified so we could barely see or stand up. We ducked down the other side of the ridge to avoid the wind. We skirted around (clinging onto tussocks) as we made our way to just before the spur down to mid-king-biv, checking Topo 50 regularly to make sure that we weren't about to walk off a cliff, as we still couldn't see (which did nearly happen, thanks Topo). Once here, we were out of the wind and cloud and could see the bivvy less than 500m in the distance. I decided that it was finally time to put my rain pants on because my legs were entering a new stage of red and did not appreciate the Spaniards or the cold. Unfortunately, we discovered that we had gotten ourselves into quite a predicament as cliffs appeared to be in every direction below and a waterfall to our left meant we couldn't sidle our way onto the track down the mid-king spur. Wanting anything rather than to face the wind again, we scoped out all our options, settling on the only non-waterfall vegetated cliff we could find. We used our rock climbing skills, but mainly gravity, to take us down. What proceeded was over 2 hours of bashing through thick shrubland (spaniards, leatherwood) across 300m. We tried to avoid the areas where we could hear water underneath us and prayed we didn't break a leg in the random holes that meant you dropped a meter with your other leg still caught in a leather wood branch now above you, making you really wish you were a lot more flexible than you were. The whole time, I had the chorus to the song 'Are You Having Any Fun?' by Elaine Stritch on loop, taunting me. After doing backflips and somersaults in the most intense game of Twister ever, we made it to mid-king-biv with no injuries (yayyy!!). Both Finlay and I agree that the section over the tops and getting to the bivvy was the most scared either of us had ever been while tramping, as we both felt that we were one more bad thing away from something potentially actually bad happening.
In the end, we bagged mid king biv and bashed unhappily to mitre flats where we met my yr 10 science teacher and heard craziest snoring I’ve ever heard (leave some oxygen for the rest of us, please see a doctor) -> had to sleep in the tent
Day 5: more bush bashing over the blue range to Mikimiki Stream and finally linked up to a DOC track (very exciting!) -> jogged back to car -> KFC -> home
Overall, the views were incredible, we met lots of interesting people, heard lots of roaring stags, and saw one. My legs haven't looked worse, thanks mainly to the bashing on day 4. Things were learned, I hope.