Holdsworth Lookout Track, Mt Holdsworth, Masterton
21 September 2008
We’d done an overnighter up to Atiwhakatu Hut and a walk the previous day to Mountain Hut and back, and this walk was basically just dotting i’s and crossing t’s before heading off. However, it turned out to be possibly one of the highlights of our week. If you’re among the elderly and stout, a few days’ preparation is probably essential, and you’ll definitely need sticks.
For me it was one of those descents where two legs and a stick provided stability while the other stick located the next anchor point, then two sticks and a leg, etc etc. Not difficult, and you’re not going to fall and break your neck thousands of feet below, but you do have to pay a little attention in the steeper sections. My son, Clifford, would probably jog down.
It’s steep, by my standards very steep, i.e., using handholds at eyelevel to pull yourself up at times, but the view from the top is magnificent, and it’s short enough to be easily manageable.
memory map graphic
From the campground, walk in past the lodge and over the bridge, and the first few minutes are motorway. Take a minute or two to enjoy the Atiwhakatu River on your left. It’s a classic stony river bed. Stop at the lodge and enter your intentions in the book. Blue-dome day or not, this is the Tararuas.
Right about here the motorway stops and we have a real tramping track. (Reminds me of our walk down the Mavora Track. We called in at DoC Glenorchy a day or so later and the officer on duty asked us how we had found the track, as there had been a chap through a day or two earlier re-marking it. We said, “With just a little difficulty” and she beamed. He had got it just right. Some trampers complain if there is an orange triangle every twenty metres. It is “too easy”. ) So, we have here a “real” tramping track, like most of the ones we are used to in the Waitaks.
It’s a trifle scruffy, and this young rangiora is not your new tree but a sprawling kind of scrub.
River crossing….
We pass a beech stump. Looks as if it should be home to something. Maybe I could photoshop a pair of eyes into the niche. (One of the things I enjoy about tramping is the freedom for one’s mind – as well as one’s feet – to wander all kinds of totally improbable routes.)
Another small stream to cross. I’m trying to figure, while I’m writing this up, what I’m doing with the camera that has the light changing so dramatically from blue cast to yellow.
An anonymous track meanders off to the left and an orange DoC triangle points us to the right.
Another spot for a pair of photoshop eyes. Reminds me of the Mavoro Lakes walk where we photographed a stoat, head and shoulders peering out at us from his hole, about 2m from the track where we were standing.
There’s a tune in my head, Beatles or something, “The girl with the photoshop eyes….”
Nonsense!
Now, why have they removed the rails from this bridge? Not that I need them, I’m just curious.
For me, used to Waitakere streams, the water is remarkably clear. The Atiwhakatu hut depends for its water supply on the stream alongside of it. I’d be a lot more wary of using stream water in the Waitaks.
A wonderfully symmetrical Crown fern. In about fifteen minutes I’ll have a good deal less attention to spare for small details.
It’s pretty much a standard mix of shrub trees, the ones I refer to as the usual suspects. Coprosma grandifolia, the raureku, features strongly.
Miranda stops to grab some shots of a large beech trunk she’s going to photoshop babies into, and I grab a rare shot of her coming up behind me. The track is beginning to show its teeth a little, but nothing serious.
Already we’re high enough to get some good views out down the valley, and we stop a moment to enjoy the sun.
This plant I don’t recognise and I grab a pic for later research, but no luck so far.
We carry on uphill, and the forest is beginning to change, with more substantial tree s along the way.
The track pauses to remind us that from here on we’d better start paying attention.
A piece of history. We keep something of an eye out but it would need a background in archaelology to make human sense of what remains.
We have a brief period of grace before the climb proper begins.
Pigeonwood? Or karapapa?
Here’s a bit of a scramble. Looks a bit fierce to start with but people have passed by here before us and there are clear spots where logically you place your boots, and others where roots have been smoothed by people grabbing hold.
More of the same sort of thing
We level out for a bit. I grab a snack and a swallow of water.
Another small mission… Sticks are good. Beside the extra stability they offer, a shunt from behind helps with the steeper bits.
And another short breather as we level out again.
The direction is still indisputably up, though
Just another roadside attraction…
Look at that sky and the green of that beech forest. Bliss…
The bush is showing signs that winters up here can be fierce, that yellowing of the landscape as it merges into goblin forest.
Asplenium flaccidum. Miranda wants to know what that means. I explain the most common use of the word “flaccid” in English and she understands immediately.
Definitely a tougher environment up here. The carpet shrubs are distinctly shorter and scrubbier.
“Are you OK there?” Miranda checks to make sure I am managing this bit. I still have sufficient spare capacity to take a picture. Again, it looks a touch daunting to begin with, but if you slow down, the steps are there and the handholds are there, and you don’t need to be a mountain goat or a teenager to make progress.
If I had to cope with this sort of terrain for hours and hours, it might be a different story.
A small orchid that will probably be flowering in November some time.
Levelling out again , but still needing your full attention as you walk.
That looks all right. A suitably deformed branch or two frame a distant top with snow remnants still visible from a week or two earlier.
Not there yet though.
I still have enough puff left to enjoy patterns of light and shade on the path in front of me.
That cloud’s coming over quite fast, and the wind has got up some, and it’s got a bite in it. Or is it just us emerging from the forest into the open.
I think we’re having what DoC refers to as a mountain weather change.
Over to the east is still looking good
At the top is a comfortable seat and a map on a pole (left) that allows you to identify the various peaks on the horizon. Coffee from the thermos, and a snack, and we’re on our way down again, this time with gravity on our side.
A satisfying walk. By the time we get to the bottom, the wind is picking up strongly, and we grab some lunch, then head out to Castlepoint for the night.