“A Mish a Day” #97 The Havelock River 4wd. Hakatere Conservation Area.17.5.2020. I have never been to a place where “but it’s just over there” has been said so often.
Having a Hip Injury and therefore not being able to wear a pack has prevented me from getting my mountain fix… until a little white truck showed up and solved the problem. My cousin Adam has a beast of a Suzuki Jimny 4wd, and I was about to find out that there isn’t many places this determined little beast can’t go. This trip was the first time we (The People of Aotearoa) had been released out of our homes after five weeks of Covid-19 Lockdown, and We had had a discussion about seeing how far up the Rangitata southern bank we could go. Even the drive in to the area via the Rangitata Gorge Road is jaw-dropping as you get your first view of the vast reaches of the Mesopotamia High Country Station, and the first good look towards Cloudy Peak and the Rangitata Riverbed. Unfortunately, we didn’t get this grand view until our drive out of the area, as there was low cloud and drizzle as we left the road and started the track into the riverbed. We crossed over a major braid of the Rangitata a couple of times, before the slow grind over numerous massive wash outs up to Growler Hut. We were now into the Havelock River area and after we notice the lights of multiple groups of 4wd vehicles slowly plodding their way up the valley coming up to the hut. We quickly had a feed and after chatting to the first group that got to the hut, we pushed on further into the valley. I have a tent and Adam sleeping in the truck means we can set up camp anywhere, and in the dark we eventually found a excellent campsite high on a terrace beside Camp Stream.
By morning the cloud had cleared, and we were treated to a beautiful sunrise, as we cooked up an epic feed for breakfast at our frosty campsite. We could now see up the Havelock Valley, and looking at the map we decided to go further and see how close we could get to Mistake Flats at the junction of the Forbes and Havelock Rivers. We traveled 6km, over four hours and many, many times, especially at Carneys Creek, we were forced to turn back to find another way through the jumbled maze of riverbed rocks. The area was hit by a huge storm with a good dosage of heavy rain a few months before, and a lot of the track in the upper valley had been washed out. At time we had to stop and manuelly make our own track by moving the bigger rocks, and we slowly picked our way through until we got to a stunning waterfall and another very inviting terrace. We went up to inspect the terrace and as we drove through the long tussock, suddenly the truck was wedged up on a rock. At times, as Adam tried to get off the rock, the truck was on three wheels and just as we were starting to think what’s plan B, he somehow wrestled the Jimny free and we felt we should leave this spot and look for another place. The spot we finally agreed on was well worth the extra effort with epic views everywhere, including Mt McMillan(1883m) standing guard over Mistake Flat , only a couple of kilometres away. To make sure we had a quality fire to match the grand area, we put the Jimny to work and gathered large pieces of wood on the roof and transported it back to our campsite. And yes, the fire was grand! The stars were on show, and the display of the Milky Way made for some incredible photography of our temporary home in The Havelock. We were up in the frost early-ish the next morning, shaking off the ice and packing up, knowing we had to somehow get back across the maze at Carneys Creek. We got to within 20m of easy ground, when we were stopped by a wall of rocks and had to turn back and retrace our ‘track’ for a good 45 minutes, before picking a completely different place to get through. After negotiating Carneys Creek, we knew the rest of the way was pretty straight followed and we stopped for a brew at Camp Creek, just in time to see a couple of Microlight Aircraft take off from the small airstrip at Growler Hut into the bluebird sky. As we made our way out we passed heaps of other trucks in the Rangitata, and each truck we stopped to have a chat with asked the same exact question “Did ya shot anything”…seriously, the exact same question from each truck!
