I have two books of tramps - weekend tramps, and day walks. All the tracks in the day walks looked either too short or too boring - I wanted to climb up something rather than just walk out to a lighthouse in the middle of nowhere.
I decided on Mt Mathews after initially dismissing it as too ambitious - it's described as a hard 10 hours/2 days track; however I know people who have been running in that area (I was going to be one of them before this stupid injury in my leg) and 10 hours is not unprecedented for a hike. There were three concerns I had about doing this track:
- Time - it's a ten hour hike and the park gates are only open for twelve hours.
- Leg - my leg's been much better of late but I haven't really pushed it much either.
- Preparation - given that Mt Mathews was chosen as the track at about 10pm on Friday I didn't have a map of the area - this didn't worry me too much as DOC parks are normally super well signed posted.
Mt Mathews From My Front Door
I set off early and was on the track by about 8:00 ish. You start off on a forested track that goes on for about an hour and half until you reach the Orongorongo river. From here you can either follow a ridge track that goes up above the river or simply walk up the river bed. All the advice I'd heard was just walk up the river, so that's what I did. Half an hour upstream I got to a bit where I needed to cross but being wary of unseeable depths I decided to double back and cross further down where I could actually fathom how deep the river was. About half an hour later the same thing happened with the net result being that I eventually headed back down the the start of the forest trail and onto the ridge track.
With an hour or so wasted I made my way along the track which had suffered a fair bit in recent downpours - I had to leave the track in a few places where land slides had blocked it. I continued along the track for about an hour - crossing the wobbliest bridge on earth in the process - until I met some other trampers going the other way. We chatted a bit and when I mentioned that I was going to go up Mt Mathews one guy said "I would have just gone up the river bed; after all you're going to have to get your feet wet at somepoint." (feet and calfs we're already wet at this point btw). Taking that advice I made my way down to the river and started up stream again.
Tackling the river
Soon enough I came to a point where I needed to cross and I did so very carefully. After about the twentieth crossing I was quite confidently plunging waist deep into the icy cold river.
Now I mentioned earlier that I didn't have a map, this became a problem because the track wasn't really marked at all. From track descriptions I was expecting the route to be marked with poles but so far I hadn't seen any. At the end of the poled route the track up the south saddle of Mt Mathews was supposed to begin. I was pretty sure that Mt Mathews was on my right but the fact that I hadn't even started the polled route formed doubts in my mind leading to the creation of competing factions i n my head:
Faction 1: Of course that's Mt Mathews on your right, it's the biggest mountain in the area.
Faction 2: Duh, Mt Mathews is clearly that smaller looking mountain up ahead,
it's all a trick of perspective.
Faction 1: But that hut we just passed was called the Papatahi hut, and Papatahi's one
of the hills further along.
Faction 2: Oh yeah, like I'd trust you to remember the name of an unrelated hill. We've
not even started the polled route yet.
Faction 1: Okay then, let's do it your way, after all you were right about fire being hot.
So I headed on until it was clear that I'd gone too far - mostly when I was able to look over my shoulder and 'Hey! There's Mt Mathews there behind me!'. So I did what any red blooded male would do in that situation - I had a sulk about the stupid track not being sign posted, how dare they expect me to bring a map into a mountain range.
By this time I'd already covered over 15km and my gammy was starting to tire, getting up Mt Mathews and back before the park closed would be a stretch (though I had brought my sleeping back in case I got back too late and had to sleep in the car). I took the decision then and there to abandon the tramp and just head back.
I made my way back down stream ploughing through the river and soon was back at the start of the forested track. As the uphill of the track started my decision to bail was vindicated as my leg started complaining quite bitterly about having to go uphill; by the time I got back to the car it was pretty darn sore.
Pretty disappointed I didn't manage the climb but from reading accounts on the internet I'm not the first person to abandon this hike. On the plus side I had a nice 30km stroll for 7 and a bit hours in unspoilt sunshine.
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