Te Tarahaka o Kaimatau | Arthur's Pass

We’ve seven days staying amongst the tūmatakuru | matagouri at Long Hill Station near Lake Pearson, in the middle of Te Tarahaka o Kaimatau | Arthur’s Pass.

• Lake Pearson (2.3km, 32m)

• Devil’s Punchbowl, Arthur’s Pass Walk, and Dobson Memorial Walk (14.2km, 419m)

• Avalanche Peak (10.6km, 1,545m)

• Hawdon Valley (partial) (3.8km, 62m)

• Cass Lagoon (partial) (1.2km, 8m)

• Temple Basin (6.5km, 599m)

• Ōtira Valley Track (4.4km, 219m)

• O’Malleys Track (partial) (5.5km, 165m)

• Bealey Chasm (7.5km, 253m)

We’re off to an auspicious start, stopping for a half lunch at the village cafe on our way through, with the other half instantly stolen and ingested by opportunists Hodder, Bumble, and Sonya – three clever and hungry kea | mountain parrot (Hodder V-3774 Black 4 on Grey, Bumble Black Z on Yellow, and Sonya White Y on Green).

Day one we visit Lake Pearson through wildflower meadows of foxglove, dandelion, clover, wild rose, daisy, chicory, and viper’s bugloss. Kate, the owner here at Long Hill Station, tipped us off to the birds sheltering at the western end of the Lake in this wind. Sure enough we spot māpunga | black shag and pūteketeke | crested grebe with chick in the distance.

Better omens?

We drive through the pass in fine weather and rising wind, arriving to a storm front at the village. Rain sets in as we park the car. Jackets on, pack cover on, we visit the temporary Te Papa Atawhai | DOC visitor’s centre, pick up a guide to the Dobson Nature Walk (excellent), read about where to find mohua | yellowhead (Hawdon Valley – where the orange-crested kākāriki | parakeet and the whio | blue duck and roroa | great spotted kiwi are present too), whio (Minga-Deception), and pīwauwau | rock wren (Temple Basin), add those locations to our list of adventures, and then head out into the weather.

The rain is continuous but not heavy, coming in sheets and squalls, pushed up the pass from the West Coast. The mountains are shrouded, giving occasional glimpses of snow and once, one little patch of sunlight lighting up the mountain grasses on Mt Bealey. We cross the Bealey River on a foot bridge, then walk the fifty or so metres up to the Devil’s Punchbowl. It’s spectacular in the rain, a real cataract. Greys and greens in the water, wind blowing the waterfall off-course, rain making everything slick and shiny in the dark, moody tawhai | beech landscape. We pass loads of people in wet weather gear passing the day or breaking up the drive. We follow the walk down, duck off the main track to the power station, eat our chilli egg and aioli sandwiches under the partial shelter of the tawhai, then follow the Arthur’s Pass Walk to the Dobson Memorial.

There are far fewer folks adventuring along this track in this weather. We pass through thick mountain beech, bubbling brooks, cascading falls, rampant cataracts, truncated views, pikirangi | mistletoe, Jack’s hut, mountain daisy, fields of ranunculus – and unrelenting rain, wind, and increasing cold. It’s a brilliant rainy day adventure –but we can’t help imagining what this walk looks like on a blue-bird day, or a full-blown storm day.

As we pass back through the village in the rain, kea keep the Arthur’s Pass Cafe and Store customers occupied. We spy tarapirohe | black-fronted tern as we drive alongside the Waimakariri River.

Day two. Thunder echoes off mounts Manson, Misery, and Horrible. Rain rattles the roof and windows. Wind shakes the hut. Yesterday’s rainbows are long gone. Darkness falls as the day dawns. Lightening sheets the sky. It’s quite spectacular, being here, in Te Tarahaka o Kaimatau Arthur’s Pass, in a thunderstorm. Magnificent. Brutal. Like rockfall. Like explosions. The gap between lightning and thunder closes to five seconds, then three, then the gap disappears altogether. Peels ring out every minute. I try to video, time-lapse, and photograph the storm – it’s undocumentable. 230mm of rain falls alongside hundreds of bolts of lightning. Today along the Arthur’s Pass Walk would be truely terrifying.

As the weather eases we head out. We stop first at Lake Pearson. It’s miserable. We head to Cass and in tribute to Rita, photograph the little train station. We head to the Hawdon / Mt White Bridge thinking we might enjoy the shelter of the tawhai and a glimpse of whio or mohua. The bridge is terrifying. Truely. Utterly impassable. We listen to the clanging and grinching as logs slam against the uprights. Is the bridge subtly twisting? Buckling? This is a hard no today. Environment Canterbury recorded peak flow at 1,166 cubic metres per second – twenty times more than the river’s normal level. We head up the road for a full view over the Waimakariri valley. It’s entirely full of water. The river is just centimetres below the road. We turn back, awestruck, with much respect for the might of te taiao.

Day three. I swing open the hut farm gate before the sun crests the dip between Long Hill and Purple Hill. I pause as I turn on to West Coast Road to photograph the first rays of light hitting Black Range, mirrored in what is left of last night’s rain. Rain that has cleared through the Waimakariri and tributaries in remarkable time. I drive through a mudslide that came down during the storm, freshly cleared. Today I climb the jaw-droppingly awesome Avalanche Peak, 1,545 metres of ascent to a height of 1,830, heading up Avalanche Peak Route and down via Scott’s Track. 

It’s intense. Unrelenting. Straight up. Big strides. Loose rocks. Yesterday’s weather has loosened everything up. The first hour-and-a-half is in the cool shelter of the beech forest. I pause often. Pikirangi. Korimako | bellbird. Pīhoihoi | pipit. Pahirini | chaffinch. Kāhu | harrier. Views of the valley east and west. The village. The train station. The sun illuminating the northern peaks of the pass. Suddenly the ngāhere | forest ends and I am whooping aloud at the Mt Bealey cirque. Light and shadow make this and Lyell Peak feel like something out of prehistory. I add layers – I now have four (wool, sun, polar, goretex). I add sunscreen. I test taking my gloves off, and put them right back on.

The track here on the tops is occasionally more forgiving in steepness, but increasingly more precarious, with sheer drop-offs to the east. Gusts of wind wrap around the bluffs as I climb. Cairns. Climbing. Clambering. Ranunculus. Daisies. Grasshoppers.

Suddenly I am on a scree slope, hugging the edge, sharp and steep to the conjunction of the three tracks. I pause, eat half a protein bar, and set out for the summit.

This section of track is terrifying.

Knife-edge, sheer-sided, clambery, flakey black rock, sharp. Wind gusts. I kneel. I put one pole away. I shimmy. I am confident. I can do this. I am sure footed. I kneel when I need to. Suddenly the track ends, I have summited. It is exquisite. And still terrifying. I sit, immediately. I swivel, photograph, smile, stand, and return to a safer spot.

As I settle off the summit, a kea lands on the summit, searching for anticipated lunch leftovers. I call to it, it comes to me. We share a lovely few moments together, getting to know each other. 

I clamber my way down Scott’s track, entranced by Mt Rolleston and the Crow Glacier, the northernmost permanent glacier in Te Waipounamu | the South Island. I alternate between photographing the maunga | mountain and the Devil’s Punchbowl and its feeding cirque of Mts Cassidy and Aicken. There are tarns. I pause and eat lunch, sheltered from the wind, watching the sun slowly move up the stream at the foot of the falls.

Soon enough I’m back in the treeline. Miromiro | tomtit. Riroriro | grey warbler. Titipounamu | riflemen. The track becomes a waterfall. I stand in the waterfall photographing a bigger waterfall across the valley. A kapokapowai | New Zealand bush giant dragonfly lands beside me.

This has been an epic adventure, a real challenge, one overcome, and with energy left in the tank. I walk through town past the historic cribs and back to the car, mission complete. Satisfied.

Once home, I jump straight into an epsom-salted outdoor bath, and then we head out again. We make a booking for dinner at the Bealey Hotel. We head to the Hawdon Valley, intending to do some of the walk that the previous day’s weather had rendered foolhardy. The Waimakariri at the Mt White Bridge is placid in comparison. We photograph the bridge for contrast, drive over, turning left to the Hawdon shelter while marvelling at the expansive Mt White Station to the right. We park beside the Hawdon Valley shelter with the open fireplace. We start out through the beech forest, imagining mohua and kakariki and whio – then abandon that idea at the first intersection of the river. It’s impassable. (And the mohua and kakariki are about 10 kilometres further up this valley.) We turn out on to the gravel fan, loop back to the carpark, then follow the track up Woodshed Hill. We reach Camp Kidson as kākā | forest parrot fly overhead. A large black bird swoops between us into the woods. I think it’s kākā and head in to investigate, whistling and screeching as I know kākā like to do.

It is karearea | falcon. I stop whistling and photograph. This bird is spectacular. It scares one of the hares we’ve spotted, and then perches, happy to let us approach, keeping a watchful, unmoving eye or two on us. We marvel and then give it space, feeling very fortunate for the encounter.

We’ve got time left before our dinner booking, so head back to the Cass Lagoon walk. We stroll a kilometre or so alongside the Cass River, stalking deer in the fenced paddock next to us, and tara nui | Caspian tern working the river beside us. Vipers burgloss and foxgloves line the track. It’s very pretty.

Dinner is perfect. We both have the beef burger, I enjoy a Bealey Lager. It’s nice. We enjoy the view, stop again to look over the Waimakariri as the sun sets, in the same spot I stopped to watch the sun rise earlier before climbing Avalanche Peak – and think on what a marvellous day we’ve had.

And it’s not over. It’s a clear night that evening, I head out and photograph the stars. My previous attempt had the usual frustration – how to focus manually with a narrow depth of field and no hard-stop. I risk a few shots with a wider depth of field and use the zoomer. These work, and together with Photoshop’s denoise, they work well.

Day four we set out for Temple Basin. The weather is holding, with increasing wind. We stop again by the temporary visitor’s centre, check with the DOC team about the best spots for whio and pīwauwau. They recommend Ōtira Valley. We add that to the day’s plan, then head to Temple Basin. It’s a slog. Up a large, loose, gravel switchback. But with each switchback, new views east and west along the valley are revealed. The view south to Mt Rolleston is ever-present, and as we climb, the views of Mt Temple, Temple Col, and Blimit emerge. We follow the side track to the Twin Creek Falls, hoping for but not finding pīwauwau. I look down on the creeks hoping for but not finding whio. The track from here becomes impassable by vehicle. Railway sleepers become steps, and many of which have been twisted or undercut by weather erosion. This walk is entirely exposed, with no ngāhere to shelter sections of the walk. It’s hot – I’m sunburned by the time we’re back. We crest the switchbacks and head up the last rise to the Temple Basin skifield. It’s neat. There are several buildings, none are occupied. The lodge is open, a great vantage point for lunch. We eat out the back of the lodge, circumnavigate the buildings, then head back down, stopping to watch a giant dragonfly eating a cicada.

We head back down and cross the valley to Ōtira. The weather is cooling. Cloud wraps around the heads of the maunga as we walk up the valley. It’s beautiful. Much more level than Temple Basin, but with some clambering and stream crossings and scree scrambles. We climb up past the footbridge, eat our second sandwich, then retrace our steps, satisfied.

Day five we reprovision in Tāwera | Oxford.

It’s raining.

Day six we plan the year ahead. It’s raining, and 11°. We set out for O’Malley late in the day, spotting titipounamu within a few hundred metres of the track start, then toutouwai | robin and miromiro all along the route. Glimpses of the ice blue Waimakariri and clouded-in valleys made this a pretty special short walk.

Day seven, our last day here. It’s raining. We’re just into double digit degrees again. There’s little wind, a lot of cloud – although we can see most of the tops – and snow forecast below 2,000 metres later today. We relight the fire from the overnight embers. We pack in the morning, decide to lunch at the Pass Cafe, check into Peg Leg for whio (none sighted), then wander to Bealey Chasm from Temple Basin. It’s raining when we get to the cafe, and the cafe is stonkingly full. We buy a bacon and egg sandwich, a New York peppersteak pie, a passionfruit yoyo, and a long black with cream. No kea partake in our meal. We eat on stools, pass by Peg Leg, then park at Temple Basin. We walk down to Bealey Chasm and continue up Bealey Valley. We marvel at the boardwalk, fungi, alpine grasses and flowers, beech forest, smooth rocks, turquoise water, avalanche paths, shrouded clifftops, miromiro. It’s really lovely. We finish with a second walk around Dobson Memorial, then head home.

Ngā mihi Te Tarahaka o Kaimatau Arthur’s Pass.