Urewera Tramp - 3 hr drive & 16 km walk

End of the day in the Whirinaki Te Pua-a-Tāne Conservation Park

After yesterday was spent relaxing, today is our third day of tramping.

At 6-30am everyone was up early at the Waikaremoana Holiday Park, with Julianne and I working to get everything ready, eating breakfast and packing the last things for the tramp while Robin stayed in his sleeping bag waking up and having his breakfast. Robin is not used to these early starts and is finding the room cold.

By 7.30am we were in the car moving which is excellent as the drive from Lake Waikaremoana to the Whirinaki National Park is a long 3 hours across an unsealed gravel road which very windy. As Julianne gets motion sickness easily she is going to drive the whole way, this could well be the longest non-stop drive I think Julianne has ever done in her life!

We are walking the Mangamate loop track which has two days of supposed four hours of walking and a single day of around six hours, and knowing how we walk this means two 6 hours days and one 8 to 10 hours day. The original plan was to start today with one of the shorter walks due to the long drive but after a discussion it was decided go with the longer walk first so we come out earlier on the last day. Also we had heard that there was going to be rain on days two and three the tramp and we wanted less time spent walking in the rain.

This tramp is in the Whirinaki Te Pua-a-Tāne Conservation Park, which was an amazing forest to discover – it has never been cut down so has massive trees like around Lake Waikaremoana but appears to have more predator control as there are Whio in the rivers, the blue duck which is a rare endangered endemic bird which lives in fast flowing NZ’s rivers. I have seen whio before in the South Island but not here in the North Island and I didn’t even know they were on this tramp which was a very nice surprise. Because of the whio there is a lot of stoat predator control in the area.

Walking through this amazing real New Zealand bush is a treat; recently I have been walking in bush which is regrowth but to see huge NZ native trees in such a majestic, primeval, ancient – environment is simply amazing. Plenty of these massive old trees at the end of their lives have fallen over and become habitats for all the bugs and insects which shows the circle of life is truly alive and well in this forest.

Watching the whio in the river below

On this walk I invented a new game, for each bird you spot you get points, 5 points for birds like whio, kaka etc; 3 points for robins, Kererū etc and 1 point for common birds like tui’s and fantails. I started off well as I spotted several whio but by the end of the day Robin was well in the lead and won.

Walking along we saw our first two pair of whio, this is the first time Robin has seen whio in the wild.

Whio - Blue Duck in fast flowing rapid fill rivers.

We also saw many other birds such as robin, tui, fantail, kaka, kererū, tomtits, welcome swallow & we heard kakariki but didn’t see any. The only problem with such an old untouched forest is that the trees are so high it becomes quite hard to catch sight of the high flying birds like kaka which I heard a lot of but I only got to see several times flying overhead through the trees which was fantastic.

Strange tunnel build near the end of the tramp, no idea why?

The walk itself is not that hard, a gentle climb uphill but with my lack of fitness the 16 kilometers for today was not that easy. Near the end of the day around 4pm I was really getting quite tired and I struggled into the hut at 5.45pm, which is quite late but a relief to know that I have walked 16 kilometers and got the long day walk out of the way.

The first thing I did once I arrived was get my shoes off, get some fresh air on my feet and then dive into the Whirinaki River which I have been walking alongside all day, so nice and refreshing and of course cold especially after the lovely Sandy Bay Hut several days ago. Julianne got her feet wet as well and Robin went in up to his chest.

Robin found a lot of caterpillars

The hut itself was large and importantly there was no one else there which is brilliant and so nice. We could relax and spread our stuff all over the place.

Relaxing in our private hut!

Back in the hut after quickly dying off I simply just sat enjoying the view and recovered from the long but lovely walk. After dinner I went down to the river and saw a family of four whio who swam by nice and close – which is great as they are normally hard to get close to.