Walks with Moss: Kaitoke Track to Tutuwai Hut on the Tauherenikau River in the Tararua Forest Park New Zealand

Train ticket from Featherston to Upper Hut

Tutuwia Hut Backpack Trip

My trip to New Zealand was more about visiting a friend and just getting away while I could line up care for my kid, dog, chickens and fish. I did not expect to do any overnight backpacking trips and I was staying on the North Island.

Looking at the map where my friend lives, I looked up a few hiking trails with an eye towards day hiking. On the map I could see that the trails had huts on them. Further research indicated that the huts were heated!

Heated huts in the winter? This changed all of my plans! I switched from trying to pack just a carry on bag to packing my largest suitcase, so I could bring my overnight gear.

I needed boots for the mud, my down quilt, my backpack and some other gear for a comfortable overnighter. I opted to bring my handmade dayhiking pack since it is smaller and I was only going out for one night. My dayhiking pack does not have a hip belt but that would be okay since I only had to carry one days worth of food and did not need to carry a shelter.

To start my journey I walked one mile (1.6km) to the Featherston train station and I took the train to the town of Upper Hutt, where my friends parents were waiting to give me a ride to the trailhead. Thanks so much for the ride!

I started my hike at Kaitoke off of Marchant road and highway two at the Kiwi Ranch trailhead. My goal was to make it to the Tutuwai hut in the 8 hours of daylight that I had. The track starts out by going up a hill with some views of farmland before it dives into the woods and goes up another hill and then drops down to Smith Shelter and the Tauherenikau river. Pronounced (tear a knee cow). The trail then follows the river upstream to the Tutuwai hut and beyond.

At the halfway point on my hike I experienced my first swing bridge and it was scary, but I was too far in to turn back, so I went for it.

The trail was very well marked with lots of nice new looking metal signs. After crossing the bridge though the trail turned into a "tramping path" and I had to pay attention to stay on the trail in a few spots.

I made it to the hut at 3pm and the sun set at around 5, so I made it in plenty of time. The hike was a bit rushed for me because I was racing the sunset and I am a slow hiker. Even racing the sunset I did not travel anywhere near as fast as the signs indicated. They like to measure trail length in hours instead of distance. I guess that is fine if you are a long legged 20 year old and not a short middle aged photographer.

I'd rather know the distance and the elevation gain thank you very much.

The hut was nice and there was a little bit of wood left, so I did not freeze in the night like I normally do when I go backpacking. The hut cost me 3 hut tickets ($15NZ) that I purchased at the DOC office in Wellington. They were very friendly and helpful in the DOC office but they refused to tell me how many kilometers long any of the trails were. I was glad that I had downloaded a free NZ topo map for my phone that I could use to measure the distance and elevation gain.

In the morning I packed up and ate breakfast in the dark anticipating my long hike out and another race against the setting sun. I used my Delorme satellite messenger to let my friend keep tabs on where I was and to send messages with my ETA back to the trail head.

On the way out I made a wrong turn that cost me about 400 feet or 120 meters, in elevation gain before I figured it out and turned around.

I had a great hike and I hope to go back and explore New Zealand and spend more time with my friend soon.

27 Kilometers with 518m total elevation gain round trip

17 miles with 1,700 feet total elevation gain