WILD ADVENTURE
We were lounging around one evening when James spoke up: “What if we bagged every hut in the Tararua – in a single trip?” Tararua Forest Park is wonderfully underrated. It has huts sprinkled over its forested valleys and windy ridges. Its mountains are steep, the ridges jagged with pinnacles. Trailhead signs warn of pea-soup clag and spiteful winds. On a good day, the park's rivers offer emerald-green swimming holes. From the tops, it's possible to see the Kaikoura Ranges and Mounts Taranaki and Ruapehu.
My husband James and I live in Upper Hutt. We've been into the Tararua a bit, enough to get struck by dehydration on Marchant Ridge and battered on the notorious steel ladder near Maungahuka Hut. We have a dog, Boo. He's orange and white with a delightful nature and he loves tramping with us. He'll even carry his own doggy backpack. Due to its classification as a forest park and its lack of kiwi, Tararua is Boo-friendly.
The exact number of huts in the park is debatable, as the forest hides a few unofficial ones in quiet corners. We decided to aim for the 49 huts and bivs named on the Topo50 series of maps plus Winchcombe Biv which was built after the maps were last updated. It would have been easier to arrange pick-ups and have the occasional night out of the park, but we wanted to get to every hut under our own
