By Tommy Thomson, 26 April 2025
For bag all the huts this year, I got to do 2 different trips with 2 different people, and sleep in my bed inbetween. Luxury! This was the first, a daytrip to North Mangahao biv with Lochie.
Lochie picks me up in the famous red Carolla, barely late for the alpine start of about 7. We race north on the stupid expressway, somehow resist the temptation of Levin Pak-N-Save, and make it to the slightly sceptical looking Bucks roadend by 8:30. It's a gate on a pine forest road, but I'd been here before and I was pretty sure it's the right place. Stomping down the roads is very quick although we take the wrong turn at one point, and bump into our first hut of the day, Motorimu whare. It's very basic, 2 large sleeping platforms without matresses, a concrete floor and a curtain instead of a door. It's built by the council for Te Araroa and the hut book asks whether you are NOBO or SOBO, with no option for North Mangahao Biv. Someone is still sleeping in so we leave him to it and stomp up the road. There's a few options here, I don't trust the map and take the more direct way, which is fine but eventually we do get a bit stuck in the bush lawyer. Turns out the map isn't too far off at least for the forestry roads. Lochie has some great travel stories from Samoa and Southeast Asia(spoiler, he prefered the Tararuas)
Someone has cut the track through the scrub on the ridge so we make quick work of that. This area must have had a fire at some point, we should be well in the bush but instead it's windswept horopito and leatherwood scrub. Feels like it should be a few hundred meters higher. The track goes further than you expect along the ridge then drops down into the forest to Punga hut. It's a lovely hut, tucked within a grove of big podacarps but it still gets the sun. Someone has put a lot of work into keeping it watertight and it would be a lovely place to spend the night. It's even got a stove and some coffee for a quick brew.
From here it gets worrying. I've heard horror stories from Patrick and Joe, who took 5 hours to get the roughly 1.5km from here to North Mangahao. Dense scrub, steep cliffs, lawyer, leatherwood, the lot. Our day mission sounds a little ambitious. But I've done a bit of reasearch and heard good things about the 540 contour and it looks good on the map, so we set off, following our noses roughly at that height and picking up on historic human tracks and deer tracks where we can. And it just stays good. Up the steep little creek below the hut and there we are, 1.5hrs from Punga. Seems like the record according to those that are vain/traumatised enough to record it in the hut book. I get a mediocre view from the hill behind the hut, then we head back, down the creek with even a little swim on the way, along the 540 contour through the scrub and the tracks, still just following our noses. We notice a tempting looking canyon below us, and indeed someone has written beta for the canyon west of Punga Hut, so I will be back here to attempt those. Laze at the hut for a while, then over the hill, down the road, and we're on the Levin plains by sunset. Too easy.