Travel on upper reaches of Otaki River (Tararuas)?
Original post
Hi - a question about this.
I would like to get to a spot up the upper Otaki River - ie: being the north-east arm of the river (to an area approx between the bottom of Murray Creek and Kelleher Creek).
Oriwa ridge looks pretty good for travel. However in order to mix it up a bit, it would be nice to try some return travel along the river.
I found one older post (2015) from a hunter saying he "used to go up this river", but not much else. Is this river fairly easily travel-able? The terrain for the most part looks pretty flat on the map, however in tararua terms, that could mean anything!
For context, I have done a few rivers in the Ruas and found the river approach to Upper Hutt hut easy but travel up the Snowy River a PITA.
Cheers!
as long as it's not raining, its sraight forward. if the river is up, its very slow going through the bush
+1 to what @waynoski said, pools, gravel and the odd scramble around/over rocks and logs...
Found this fairly recent photo album online of a trip from Ohau roadend over the ridge and down to Mid Otaki to give you an idea of the travel. Owira ridge is good travelling.
https://www.meetup.com/WellingtonTrampingGroup/photos/all_photos/?photoAlbumId=26797757
Another link:
https://wtmc.org.nz/newsletter/down-memory-lane-and-the-upper-otaki/
Many thanks to you both - there is also the trippy tramping link about getting to this spot which I also just found. Great photos, thanks for the link bazza.
I cant actually imagine that it would be too difficult - given that the mid-otaki hut had an official hut on it, before it was removed when this land status was changed.
So it looks like travel up the river from Waitewaewae hut to the mid otaki flats, going up the river, will be between 4-5 hours....nice.
i went down it from the headwaters from Te matawai, when it was raining, gt swept away when i stepped into a hole.... pack on top of me pushing my head down, managed to roll onto my back, took about half an hour to get out of the river when it widened out.... had to bush bash on and off about a third or more of it.... took thirteen hours over a day and a half to get to waitewaewae and the last two hours was on a track that was there at the time... the track when at least up to the flats originally. but that was decades ago before it became a wilderness area.
so unless you want to do that, you may not want to go when its raining, wasnt raining very hard either.
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| Forum | Tracks, routes, and huts |
|---|---|
| Started by | si-dog |
| On | 3 December 2018 |
| Replies | 5 |
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