thebigbluetree.com *Stories & Stuff: Waiatoto Adventure!! (Part 1: The Walk In)

Everything here in Wanaka NZ was gearing up for New Year. Rachael was getting ready to be super busy with work, serving food to the hungry celebrating mob late into the night. I on the other hand found myself at a very loose end - work was finished for the festive season and with my adventure buddy busy I was bit reluctant to spend money on fuel to go exploring by myself. I was a bit frustrated and even sat down to write a essay for the site on the environmental ethics of heliboating (or something along those lines). How boring. I needed an adventure!

Now, as if fate had all this set up, I found out that very day that Jan 'Honza' Svoboda the Czech rafting guide we had recently met was heading this way to take a group on a week long adventure into the wilds of the Waiatoto river. The Waiatoto begins its journey from the melting ice of Mount Aspiring's Lower Volta Glacier and carves its way through jagged snowcapped mountains and wild bush to the sea at Jackson Bay on the West Coast. Having read the description of the river in the Whitewater New Zealand Guidebook back in the Scotland during the impatient lead up to our trip, when Jan turned up at the door and asked if I wanted to come along to 'Safety Boat' I didn't think twice and jumped at the opportunity.

However, it turns out we were not going to all be taking a helicopter ride to the put in like most groups. The boats would be, but not us poor people. We were going to have to earn our whitewater by walking in through the hills and bush from this side! From the Matukituki valley over Rabbit Pass and Pearsons Saddle...

Day One:

An early start from the house in Wanaka, we drove up the dirt track towards Raspberry Creek and the upper Matukituki tributaries. Here we shouldered our packs and headed up the East branch of the Matukituki River towards Ruth Flat where hopefully we would find a small emergency cabin that we could eat and sleep in, hidden away from the sandflies and incoming rain. The day began with nice easy walking to begin with over wide alpine pasture beside the river. This gradually led us into some cool native beech woodland where the walking got a bit more tricky up and over roots and streams. It was a fairly cloudy day but it was sweaty work on some of the steep hills and climbing over fallen trees where recent landslides had washed out muddy rocky strips down the valley side. Eventually towards evening we arrived back at river level, and after an easier stroll up the beside the pebbly stream bed we arrived at our first camp spot: a tiny tin cabin that must have been helicoptered into the valley and left for emergency shelter.

Looking back down the East branch of the Matukituki river, our route up into the hills.

Ruth Flat, our first camp. See the cabin middle right?

Day Two:

Another even earlier start today, after a cramped nights sleep in the Ruth Flat Cabin. For the first hour or so we walked up the river, or rather in the river which was quicker and easier than the thick vegetation on either bank. I opted for bare feet as I couldn't face walking the rest of the trip with wet boots. Luckily my feet have hardened quite well thanks to my 5.10s falling apart not long into our NZ adventure and the price of shoes out here.

Once we reached the top of the stream things quickly got steeper and rockier, and I found out why a lot of the mountains and awesome looking ridges around here are not climbed very often. The rock is horrible! Slippery, loose and brittle. Like climbing a mountain of Walkers crisps.

Heading up into the wet clouds of Rabbit Pass.

After scrambling up into the pass, things were wet, cloudy, cold and windy. We huddled in the lee of a boulder for some lunch and decided to find a good campsite up in Pearson's Saddle to hide in the warmth of our tents and sleeping bags and wait on the sun coming out...

Nice and Wet in the Tent.

Day Three:

Roughly twenty-four hours later at 2pm the following day, after munching most of my Whittaker's berry and biscuit chocolate, starting and finishing my book for the trip, and lots of sleep, dosing and thinking, we stuck our heads out of the tent and saw patches of blue emerging through the clag, and brief glimpses of snowy mountains around us. Time to get up, and get out of here!