A Dangerous Business

Date: 14th December 2023

Start: Whakapapa River, Owhango (km 1071.2)

End: Tongariro Holiday Park (km 1108.5)

Distance Travelled: 37.3 km

Total Distance Completed: 1035.5 km

Song Currently Stuck in Head: My Sister’s Crown by Vesna

Birds: yes

My alarm turns on at 5am and I begin my ritual of internally screaming until the second one goes off 10 minutes later. Only then do I start moving, never before. If a day comes when I am able to get up and go before the sun without any difficulties, please book a psychiatrist for me. Or just a regular doctor, I may have just been concussed.

To save time I did all my pack up inside my tent, including making a coffee. When I stuck my head out, I saw that Matt and Vicky were already fully packed and were just finishing off their breakfast. Sonja and Snacks weren’t that far behind and Anne… was still asleep. Great, I was hoping to have some company on today’s walk – I didn’t exactly fancy having to walk through overgrown, slippery tracks alone – but it looks like I’ll be playing catch up at least for the first few hours.

Matt and Vicky crossed the bridge right on the crack of 6am, followed by Snacks and Sonja 15 minutes later and me 10 minutes after that. Righto, time to go fast. I had 20 km of the 42 Traverse to catch them up, and although they all go at a decent pace I reckoned I could go faster. I ought to clarify that I wasn’t rushing through the track recklessly, I tried that on Carnarvon and look how that turned out. The 42 Traverse is used for everything, hiking, cycling, four wheel driving, so it’s quite a wide trail.

I was still listening to Fellowship (now at the Council of Elrond) but the sound of the wind whistling through the trees and birds singing in the branches still pierced through Andy’s brilliant narration. Don’t take this as a complaint, I love birds. Kereru were flying surprisingly graceful through the air, Silvereyes were darting from flower to flower, and the occasional Piwakawaka made an appearance too. Beyond the many introduced birds and hundreds of tui I’ve seen, I haven’t seen many native birds so far. I suppose that’s got a great deal to do with all of the road walking and farm tracks I’ve been on; native birds are more isolated to the national parks and other conservation areas.

The 42 Traverse is marketed as a cycling track, however I’m not sure I’d want to take a bike on it, being a lot steeper and rougher than the Timber Trail (and that was hard enough for me). Walking, therefore, seemed to be the best option, although I did get a few reminders that my walking days are numbered.

It’s only a few days now until I start paddling down the Whanganui, with a lot of trail still sitting in between me and it, including a large slip blocking part of the Traverse.

The slip came down in a storm late last year, preventing the track from being traversed (pun intended) in its entirety. DOC made a rough bypass track to get around it, but since then seemingly a track over the slip was either built or worn in by bold/reckless hikers. All of the comments on Far Out were saying it’s better to go over it rather than take the bypass which was said to be rough and muddy. In comparison, the slip track was just rough.

All this time I still hadn’t seen anyone else and I was starting to get frustrated. I’d started 10 minutes behind Sonja, surely I should’ve seen her by now. Right before the TA diverges onto the Waione/Cokers track (the bad bit that I wanted to avoid doing solo) there’s a stream crossing, on the other side of which wasn’t Sonja, but Vicky, Matt, and Snacks all drying off their feet. Bit confusing seeing as they’d all started much earlier, but not an unwelcome sight.

Once we got onto the Waione, I don’t know why I was so worried about it. It was just another classic overgrown “4WD” track (in that it had two distinct wheel channels but I had no clue how you’d fit a 4WD down it), honestly pretty boring. The main sources of excitement were dodging gorse and blackberry vines and crossing the Mangatepopo Stream.

Finally, my first fast flowing river crossing. Matt and I went together, although neither of us had done a river crossing safety course and were relying on our memory of watching videos on YouTube on how to do it. I think we did alright, the main challenge was the slippery rocks lining the bottom of the stream.

A grassy clearing on the other side made for a good lunch break. The track was more of the same on the other side, including some lovely sections of steep red clay. Apart from that, there’s nothing much to write about. Altogether it was quite a mediocre track, despite many comments claiming it was really great. It wasn’t, the only great thing about it is what it got me closer to.

Oh yes, I’m back at Tongariro. I did the Northern Circuit with Eli around this time last year and how here I was again, ready to tackle the crossing for the third time. This time, however, I’d be going the opposite way from Ketetahi to Mangatepopo.

But that’s a story for tomorrow’s post. For now we had a 7 km road walk to Tongariro Holiday Park which Vicky, Snacks and I tried to hitch Toni avail. Oh well, it went by pretty quickly, arriving to find Maud and… Sonja? Turns out shed taken the bypass, gotten lost somewhere along the line, taken zero breaks the whole day, and gotten a hitch on the final road section.

The seven of us had booked two rooms at the holiday park, the girls taking one and Matt and I sharing the other. This is when Matt revealed his plans for the crossing tomorrow. If I haven’t mentioned it already, Matt is a photographer, and there is nothing in the world that photographers love more than a good sunrise. So, he would leave the holiday park at midnight, walk up to Red Crater for the sunrise, get some sweet pics, then walk back down and do the Northern Circuit in one day to Whakapapa. He’s mad but I respect the effort. The rest of us – well, except Anne who’s an every stepper – would take a shuttle at 7am to the trailhead and walk the trail like normal people should. I went to bed super excited. This may be my third crossing, but Tongariro National Park has become one of my favourite places in the world. Helping this was a very promising weather forecast. Fine day, clear views, just a bit of wind to contend with. All the makings of a great day.