Tag Archives: tramping

The Nydia Trail – A delightful forest tramp

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(David) This day started with a fantastic breakfast.  Now I know we go on and on about breakfasts in this blog – usually the best meal of the day which is “second breakfast” – but this was great.  We left our anonymous hotel to go a few hundred yards along the beach road to The Beach House Café, Kaikoura – squashed between the Little Laundromat and the Lazy Shag (which claimed to be “serviced” accommodation – although what services were provided was a little unclear).  Anyway, the eggs benedict and bacon, with excellent coffee, at the Beach House Café are worth travelling hundreds of miles for! 

Then it was back into the minibus to go north to the Marlborough Bay area.  This area of New Zealand is wine country, with mile after mile of vines across the hills, and even on flat fields.  The wines are well known in England and taste just as good here (more of that later).  We stopped for ice creams at the town of Havelock, which had a “frontier” feel to it.  The town sits beside Pelorus Sound, one of many sea water inlets that lead out into the Cook Strait.  Whilst there and spurred on by all the wineries we had passed, Bernie had the genius idea of buying some local wine which we smuggled into our backpacks for later.

Then it was a 45 minute drive along a gravel road on the northern side of the sound to get to Kaiuma Bay, where the trail began.  The trail was about 12 km, including two fairly substantial climbs and descents, to reach Nydia Bay where there is a “hut” complete with running water, electricity, a fridge (when the generator works) and hot showers – but still a hut.

The walk was almost entirely through native forest for the first 10km and then a final 2 km along the sound.  It is hard to describe how lovely it was to tramp through this hugely variable vegetation. 

We saw palms of all descriptions, rotting trees with fascinating bark shapes, beach trees which were nothing like the beach trees we have in England and enjoyed the steady hum of cicadas, which has been the signature sound of summer abroad for so long.  I hope the pictures do credit to the beauty of the forest. At the narrow shoulder we looked down to the idyllic Nydia Bay, surrounded by the forested hills, where the only access is to walk in (or rarely get to by water taxi, although the hut ranger said he had only ever seen people walk or mountain bike in).

Once we arrived, we all went swimming in the sea to cool down after a fairly arduous tramp.  It was so, so refreshing.  There was a jetty – so for the younger elements, the inevitable jumping off, diving and trying to do “loop the loop” in mid-air, trying to turn full circle to avoid a sensitive anatomical part hitting the water at speed.  Some were more successful than others. We went for the more genteel glide in off the jetty steps!

After a swim we repaired to the lodge to have freeze dried meals, to find our guides had carried up a whole cheese board including dips and crackers.  We brought out the wine for everyone that we had smuggled into our rucksacks as a surprise.  This was another unexpected treat which let to Bernie being awarded the “toy kiwi” prize for the day.  This was luxury tramping in a five star setting.

Day 3.  Tongariro Northern Circuit.

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(Bernie) Unlike our neighbour (a professional travel writer) we managed a good sleep in spite of the howling gale rattling the tent all night (not smug at all of course). However we did not see the dawn as I had no intention of opening the tent flap in the gale! By 6am though the call of nature dragged me out of the sleeping bag and into the morning. In the hut everyone was up and about and you could not hear or feel the wind! Luckily the Department of Conservation instruction that campers should NOT be permitted to use the hut facilities  was no applied in practice (at least not here, at this time of the season. Others tell that it is strictly enforced elsewhere).  We could therefore brew our coffee and our porridge, and eat our breakfast in relative comfort.

Taking down the tent involved a complicated dance with the 2 of us unpegging and clutching and folding down the tent before it was ripped from our hands.  We managed to avoid any part of the tent blowing over the ridge and down the valley (chasing a tent sheet in the strong wind would have been a real challenge) and hurriedly brought everything down from the ridge to the hut where our belongings were strewn out ready for repacking.  The only thing missing was the bag to our platypus water filter.  David went back up the ridge and unbeleivably the very small and lightweight bag was caught in a bush and he brought it back triumphant.  We were complete!

We only had a short day today so we took out time and we ambled off relatively late at around 9am.  By this point the wind had decided to die down somewhat. We were on the dry side of the mountain, walking across arid desert-like conditions, with multi-coloured rocks that showed their volcanic past.  Now we were walking round the opposite (i.e. southeast) side of the volcano – a looming presence above us still and almost totally free of cloud in the blue sky. Although the forecast was for rain by lunchtime the skies remained bright and sunny.  Our legs were tired from the previous long day and all the climbing but we were moving well and made good progress.

For reasons unbeknown to us, but presumably because it had missed previous lava flows, the scrubland which was devoid of vegetation ended and we reached a pretty wooded area.  Crossing a fairly large river (on a bridge, not wading!) there was a sharp but extended climb through the trees.  When we emerged out of the trees onto the ridge, we were greeted with dramatic new views of a snowy Mount Ruapehu.  It was then a gentle amble down to the hut, our destination for the day, just a 3 hour walk.

Arriving at lunchtime and setting up tent was peaceful and slow.  We camped in a clearing in the bush, just beside a river.  It was quite cool in the shade but hot in the sun – a huge difference. 

We then walked out to a set of mountain springs that emerge from the hillside, with water that has taken hundreds of years to percolate through the rock and then make its way back up to be extruded.  It was a special place – and supposedly a place that two blue ducks had made their home.  That may well have been true but the ducks were off somewhere else for the day when we visited.  However it was peaceful and beautiful. 

Back to the hut for more chat, food and chat.  One of the features of these walks is that one picks up a group of people who all follow the same trail at the same place – so we caught up with Mary and Polly and Cat and Brandon, as we had the previous evening.  Another talk from a warden – not totally inspiring and mostly about her life as a warden which was sort of interesting, but honestly not that interesting.  A guide to the volcanic history or the local wildlife would have been gripping – but we got what we were given.

Then back to our books and sleeping bags.  After just 3 days on the trail the enjoyable rhythm was settling in – just as when we are cycling.  It was strange to think that tomorrow we would be back in civilisation (of sorts that is).