This article was first published in the Tararua Tramper Volume 87, no 1, February 2015
Putaputa Stream A-frame Hut MF
Wednesday 3 Dec .2014
If a day trip has a specific destination, so much the better. If as well there is variety and challenge in the terrain traversed, and the sun shines and wind is absent, then all your whio are in a row and a great day out awaits you†. Such was the case for this trip.
The A-frame hut - really just a shelter since all it offers is a covered (surprisingly dry) wooden floor - stands beside Putaputa Stream perhaps ninety minutes travel upstream from where the Hutt Gorge sidle track drops to the stream. To access this track from the Kaitoke road end one follows the path to the Flume bridge. Just before it drops back down to the river, near a large rimu, a pad takes off to the right and rises, steep and rough, to the spur crest. A few minutes up the spur a cairn marks the start of the gorge sidle track, a reasonable pad that can be followed all the way to Putaputa Stream. There is some kiekie to be negotiated, a bit of crawling under and struggling around, a steep drop or two, some casting about for markers. All good wholesome sidle stuff even when your nettle detector pings and, as they do, stays pinging throughout the day (or even week). The stream is rugged: large boulders, jumbled trunks and log jams, some rocks kept greasy by spray, waterfalls of varying susceptibility to frontal attack. So clambers aplenty, and, depending on leg length, at least one good crotcher.
From the A-frame a spur climbs in steep bursts to the watershed ridge between Putaputa and Kerekere Streams where runs a delightful forest trail providing a leisurely downhill path to complete the round trip. The pad is well marked apart from some windfall distraction beyond (SE of) Bump 642. At about 500 m altitude a slowly diverging side spur has obviously claimed a few victims and multiple red arrows highlight the right way with, in case there was doubt, a red X indicating the wrong way. CC
† That other duck, good company, seems to be a given on Wednesday trips. †† Wayne unfortunately had to make a late withdrawal due to illness
- Party members
- Colin Cook (scribe), Susan Guscott, Alan Knowles, David Ogilvie, Marg Pearce, Wayne Perkins (leader in absentia††), Lynne Pomare, Bill Wheeler, Lynne White, Warwick Wright