This past weekend I went into the Tararuas with a church group of 15; comprising 12 men and 3 of our teenage sons. Here in NZ we call it tramping - but my international readers probably know it better as hiking.
On Saturday morning we walked 2 hours to Atiwhakatu Hut from the Holdsworth entrance to the Tararua Forest Park (near Masterton). It’s a good quality track under the cover of reasonably dense bush so we weren't too concerned about weather for that part of the trip. This was despite the nasty winter weather during the week leading up to our trip (which had caused a fair few risk assessment email conversations during the latter half of the week!).
The weather was scheduled to clear on Sunday but fortunately it cleared by Saturday lunchtime. So we continued on up to Jumbo Hut after having lunch at Atiwhakatu Hut. If the weather hadn't cleared we would have stayed at Atiwhakatu (we chose this route specifically to have this option). The climb to Jumbo took between 2 and 3 hours depending on individual's fitness and climbing speed.
The carpark is at 300m, Atiwhakatu Hut is at 500m and Jumbo Hut is at 1200m. So our altitude gain was about 900m - with 700m of that the steep walk (climb!) up to Jumbo. This climb is not to be under-estimated. It challenged many in our group - including myself, and I had done it before, so knew what was ahead! The only way to approach it is to just keep going - eventually you will get there!
What we were thrilled to find as we walked up Jumbo was snow on the ground in the bush - which became deeper and deeper as we climbed. By the time we got to the hut just above the bushline it was 6" to 1' deep! The bush just below Jumbo looks like a 'goblin forest' anyway but with snow like this it looks more like Narnia. Spectacular. It was wonderful to see our boys having a great time simply enjoying the outdoors.
The weather was unbelievably calm - particularly when we got to Jumbo. There was no wind and what little cloud there was went away just after sundown to reveal a starlit sky. We could also see lights from the towns of the Wairarapa laid out before us - Masterton, Carterton, Greytown and Martinborough (Featherston is out of view from Jumbo).
The hut water tanks and pipes had frozen so we had to melt snow for water.
We got the weather forecast for the next day during the scheduled mountain radio call at 6:30pm while we were having dinner - we had taken radios because we were an organised group of 15.
Officially Jumbo Hut holds 20 but with our group of 15 and a few other groups and solos coming in for the night it stretched quite ably to handle 24.
Sunday morning some of our group went another 100m+ up Jumbo to check out the spectacular views from the tops.
We then went back the way we had come, with lunch at Atiwhakatu on the way - arriving back at the carpark late afternoon.
An all round wonderful weekend spent enjoying good company and this wonderful country God has made for us to enjoy (and protect).
The photo at left is of our group assembled outside Jumbo Hut late Saturday afternoon just before sundown - with the Wairarapa plain spread out behind us. Further photos on Facebook (public album, Facebook account not required).
Monday, August 30, 2010 at 11:55 PM 
This time five years ago in late August 2005 Hurricane Katrina had already done it's worst to New Orleans, and the levees were collapsing - leaving the city flooded.
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