The Walk to Hinapouri Tarn

Dates: 19-20 December 2018

Some great days in the hills defy easy logic. They're a riddle. On this trip there were no summits, no sun, and no distant vistas. What we had plenty of were wet feet, raging river crossings, and the lulling calls of hypothermia. And yet this walk was, for us, not just great, but Great. If I'm going to make sense of this riddle, I'll need to start well before the start.

I first tried to get to Hinapouri Tarn thirty something years ago, when I lived in New Zealand. I came across it on a map of the Nelson Lakes. I was intrigued by what I saw. Wouldn't you be?

Even without the whorling contours, names like Angelus Peak, Cascade Track and Sunset Saddle got my imagination working. And the Maori names, like Hinapouri and Maniniaro hinted at narratives beyond those of the white pioneers. To give you a better idea of the geography, Hinapouri Tarn is in the bottom left of the following map. I lived in Wellington, in the top right.

My first attempt to get there petered out almost before it got started, when I failed to hitch a lift much beyond the ferry port at Picton. I think I forgot about Hinapouri Tarn shortly after that, but three years ago, when Caroline and I were about to revisit New Zealand, it came to mind again. I'd seen this…

…photograph on the internet, and in my imagination transplanted our own tent there. We were due to meet up with my brother's family at the top of the South Island, and from back in the UK I suggested Nelson Lakes and the walk to Hinapouri Tarn. They would stay round the corner in the Angelus Hut, and we would camp. So, a couple of months later we duly arrived at St Arnaud, the little village at the foot of Lake Rotoiti. We wandered down to the jetty and looked up the lake to where the Cascade Track starts. A promising scene…

…wouldn't you agree? The weather forecast was promising too. Our chief concern was whether factor 50 sun block would be enough.

And then human reality intervened. (And I apologise for this next paragraph in advance: but my own Hinapouri Tarn story will be a meaningless fiction without airing this bit of dirty linen.) Family duly arrived, and we quickly realised that between agreeing to this trip and coming on it, the marriage had gone from deterioration to detonation. Flailing adults, wounded children: the worst. It was obvious that whatever else they were here to do, it wasn't going for a two day walk with us. We did what we could to help, but it was like entering a threshing machine. Cut up ourselves, we decided to give them a bit of space: C and I escaped to the Alpine Lodge, the hotel in St Arnaud. And here we had one of the most magical of experiences. Just as we were wondering how flawed humans could be, we found out how wonderful they could be: we met a young Swiss couple who were spending the year walking Te Araroa - the walkway that stretches the length of New Zealand. Balm! Here's Mario and Andrea, a couple of months later, at journey's end at the bottom of the South Island…

We had such a great evening with Mario and Andrea that we agreed to reconvene in 24 hours' time - at (you guessed it) Hinapouri Tarn: Te Araroa would take them there by another route to ours. Trouble was, by the time that we'd been through the family mill again on the following day, and they'd gone back to Wellington in splinters, it was mid-afternoon before C and I were able to head off up the east side of the lake. Through the bush we went…

…with tantalizing views up to the Angelus Range that nestled Hinapouri Tarn…

…unti we got to the head of Lake Rotoiti and faced another kind of reality: the clock. It was already 6pm, and the track sign told us that Hinapouri Tarn was still six hours away. It was effectively a no-go. We pitched the tent on the flats of the Travers River, and as we looked up…

…towards where our new friends were presumably basking in the sun - and waiting for us - we had never felt lower. The following morning, even though the weather was still flawless, we'd run out of time. To be honest, our hearts were no longer in it. We trudged back down the lake track, to fly back home a couple of days later. Now, we've all had times in the Scottish hills when we've failed to reach an objective. For most of us, it's just a shrug of the shoulders: we only live a few hours away, and whatever the objective, it won't be going far. But in this case, I was bugged by Hinapouri Tarn. It was 11 000 miles away. And we're not getting any younger. Would I ever get there and turn a myth into a reality?

Zoom forward now to last month - December 2018 - and Caroline and I are again heading out to New Zealand. Did we want to revisit Nelson Lakes? Funny thing is, we did. Evidently the positive experiences we had there had lasted longer in our memories than the negative.

First, though, we were to spend time back in Wellington, and I think this gives me a chance to offer you some light relief. Let me have a look through my photos from that time. Ah yes, how about this building in Wellington which…

…attests that the fame of some of our members stretches far and wide. Why should I look so incredulous?

What else? Well how about this evidence that even in the capital of New Zealand, you're never that far from a hill experience. This…

…is Caroline on top of Mt Kaukau, with Wellington in the background. Walkways in New Zealand are fastidiously maintained by the Department of Conservation. There's one thing they take for granted, though, which is that you're going to be comfortable with crossing water. Here…

…is Caroline and her Canadian cousin Kathryn, who came out to join us over Christmas, on a coastal 'path': the information board warned of the threat of sea lions and cliffs, but made no mention of thigh-deep wading. Jolly japes!

Back to the serious stuff - our quest for Hinapouri Tarn. The problem for us this time was the weather. The forecast wasn't actually bad for the couple of days we had earmarked. But neither was it good. So we decided to give it a go. Perhaps we wouldn't end up camping there, but at least we could check it out. This time we walked in down the west side of Lake Rotoiti. We camped in the long grass at the head of the lake, just across the Travers River from our previous camp. And here's the odd thing. When I show you the scene from that camp…

…and you compare it to the view we'd seen three years ago, you might think that we'd be more disheartened on this trip than on the earlier one. Not a bit of it. If beauty is in the eye of the beholder, then so is the eye in the mind of the beholder. In other words, our minds were in a bad place last time, and in a good place this time. So to us, that dank view looked just fine.

In any event, part of the beauty of the New Zealand bush is aural as much as visual. Birds. As we settled down for the night, the extraordinary music of the . Not a great songster, but it made us smile.

And here's another bird, the fantail, or p?wakawaka. Sadly it wasn't fanning it's tail: I suspect photographers have to pay for those modeling extras. We saw that bird…

…the following morning as we made our way up the Cascade Track. It follows the Hukere Stream, climbing about 800 metres through the bush.

How does four hours of climbing through forest appeal? To those of us accustomed to the spare slopes of the Scottish hills, I'll admit that it's an acquired taste. Actually, even though I lived in New Zealand for five years, I never really got the taste for the bush then: too claustrophobic. On this trip, though, I finally started to enjoy it. Apart from anything, there is the puzzle element of seeing the next red blaze. They're always there when you look carefully. It might seem anaemic to be following constructed paths all the time, but the reality in terrain like this is that we'd be lucky to have managed a couple of miles in a day - and that would probably be in a meandering circle. So, chapeau to the path makers and maintainers.

And I'll let you into a secret about the New Zealand bush: there's more than one. And more than one kind. A few days earlier we'd done a bush walk in the Mt Aspiring National Park to give us this…

…view: you'll have to imagine the Kea - green alpine parrott - that was keeping an eye on us from above. There, the top of the bush almost meets the bottom of the glaciers. And a week later, on Boxing Day, I was to do another hill, Mt Stevens in Golden Bay. My route on that day was again up a bush-covered ridge…

…which led to the tiniest patch of open ground near the summit. Again, I saw nothing but trees for 99% of the climb but the company of the birds was compensation enough. And on that day, the shade of the trees was a positive blessing. And finally, at the end of our trip this time were seeking the shade of the Kauri trees of Northland. There, we were accompanied by the sound of the most haunting of New Zealand bird songs - that of the a

…is no exception.

Back to the walk. It's fair to say that we didn't need shade climbing up the Cascade Track to Hinapouri Tarn. It wasn't actually raining, but it was damp. Our feet were already soaking from walking through the tall wet grass on the river flats, and bit by bit, the wetness spread. Still, the occasional glimpses from clearings in the beech forest…

…suggested that something better might be in the offing. Perhaps the forecast had changed?

Well it had. For the worse. We found this out when we met a couple coming down. Thunderstorms and heavy rain coming in this afternoon, they said. We were at the bushline when we got this advice, and with the top of the track only half an hour away, we were in no mood to turn around. In any event, looking back across the Hukere Stream to the Angelus Range, it still felt as if it was clearing…

One reason we felt fairly calm about the weather was that we knew the…

…Angelus Hut was close by. It's in a sensational spot beside the Angelus Lake. There are nearly a thousand such huts in backcountry New Zealand, and like the paths, they are maintained by the Department of Conservation. Another truly amazing resource - even if we still do prefer the flapping familiarity of our own tent. We wandered in to the Angelus Hut around 1pm, and found three people: a young Dutch couple who, like us, were planning on walking back out along the ridgeline of Mt Roberts. The other person was the warden. She was a young geology student, taking out a week from her summer holiday to volunteer as warden. Impressive. She also confirmed what we'd been told about the weather forecast. In fact, the forecast now had bells attached: snow above 1800 metres. Hm… we'd be going above that altitude. When we told her we were planning on going out over the ridge she pointed out that there was a lower alternative - the Speargrass Track. I must admit, I hadn't spotted this before. Both, she told us, would take 5-6 hours. We'd already been on the go for six hours, so we took a deep breath at that news. But even the lower, Speargrass route came with a word of warning: river crossings. Nah, we'd stick with the ridge route. First, though, Hinapouri Tarn. It lies over a small ridge from the hut, and in about 15 minutes this came into view…

Even in that light, Hinapouri Tarn didn't disappoint. Down at…

…the outflow of the tarn I dipped a boot in. It felt as special, to me, as any summit cairn I'd ever kicked. And there's an irony here I'm aware of. I mean, where (especially under that pall of cloud) does it remind you of? Ah yes, Scotland! It's true, I'd set my heart on going to a place which I could have found a version of on my own doorstep. Well, I did warn you that this trip defied easy logic, didn't I?

Back at the hut, we decided to have some hot food, and headed off. From here, the track was rocky, but still well marked. The whole area around Angelus might remind you of Scotland, until you look at the ground and see…

…mosses and lichens…

…that you're not quite familiar with.

Here's the view back to the hut and Angelus Lake from the start of the Mt Roberts ridge. Is the weather starting to fill in?

Answer: yes. The heavens quietly opened and the camera went away. No thunderstorm, true, and no real wind to speak of - just a steady drenching rain. Turning sleety. When we'd packed, back in the UK, I'd discarded overtrousers and cold-weather gear. Just extra ballast I'd thought. But now that we were at 6000ft, being in shorts and a lightweight cagoule didn't seem quite so clever. Still, on we went, past the junction with the Speargrass Track, when an alarm suddenly went off in my head. What were we doing? I was cold, shivery, and yawning. This didn't feel normal. We were only a hundred yards past the junction of paths, and I said I thought we needed to go back and take the lower option. Caroline didn't take any persuading.

So back we went, down the track beside the Speargrass Creek. Beside? Not for long. It crossed. Up here the stream was gushing, but it was still just a stream. Still, I suggested that we needed to forget about trying to keep boots dry (to be honest, without gaiters or overtrousers our feet were already sloshing) and just wade. We linked arms, and through we went. One down. Then, out of the mist, I thought I was seeing things: a father was bringing his two kids up the track, and the girl was carrying her boots, and walking barefoot! Well, it's true that every Kiwi kid prefers to go barefoot when they can, but this was ridiculous. They were on their way to the Angelus Hut. I told them they'd be there in half an hour, and they looked relieved.

Just past the next crossing - two down - we passed another group on their way up. I asked if there were many more crossings to be done. Lots' was the sobering reply. Caroline was a short distance behind me at the time, and I decided not to share this intelligence with her. We had no option but to continue.

The good news is that at least it was getting warmer as we descended back below the bushline. The bad news is that with every crossing the stream was becoming more river than stream. It was thundering. After the nth crossing, I was aware that we were now on the wrong side of the water from where our car was. There would be one more crossing to make. Imagine the relief when we saw that a bridge was in place for that final crossing.

Even then, the drama wasn't quite over. At one point we came to a recent landslip into the water. The path simply didn't exist here. There was, though, a waymarked alternative, which led us up a steep muddy slope, some 200-300 feet about the river. It felt dicey, but again, there was simply no option.

Late in the afternoon, I was aware that the track was trending away from the river. The roar of water receded, as the track started to contour round towards the car park at the top of the Mt Roberts road. Caroline asked me to stop and look at the bottom of her rucksack cover. I laughed. There was at least a pint of water pooled in the bottom of it! Neither of us, in all our Scottish hills, has ever been remotely close to this level of wetness. And yet we were smiling. We knew we were (literally) almost out of the woods. We also knew that we'd come very close to a bad situation, but that we'd dealt with it ok. The following morning we learnt that the couple we'd met in the hut hadn't been so lucky: they'd been committed to the Mt Robert ridge by the time that conditions changed, and ended up hypothermic and raising the alarm. They spent the night in Blenheim Hospital. Was that just our good luck and their bad? Yes, I think it was: if we hadn't had a hot meal in the Angelus Hut, and so set off twenty minutes later than the other couple, we'd likely have found ourselves in the same situation as they were. We'd like to tell ourselves that we're saved by savvy mountain sense, but sometimes we just have to hold our hand up and accept that we've come out smiling more through luck than judgment.

Around 6.30pm, as the rain was easing, we came out at the road head. Now there was just a trug down the gravel road to the lower car park, where we'd left our rental car. Only one obstacle remained: reception at the Alpine Lodge. Despite us looking like a pair of drowned rats, the answer was what we wanted: no worries, they had a room. And so, an hour after reaching the end of the track, and after a thawing bath, we were in the dining room of what Caroline describes as 'her favourite hotel in the world'. It's New Zealand at its best - casual, stylish and welcoming. From the same table we'd shared with Mario and Andrea three years ago, we could toast a trip which - whatever the photos and our sodden gear suggested - felt great. No, I'll be honest - Great. We could also see through the dining room window that the rain had lifted on the tops.

In those conditions, a camp up at Hinapouri Tarn would have been an idyll. We weren't too downhearted, though. Good weather will come again and so, if we're lucky, will we.