The Taruarau is a relatively small river with its source in the Kaweka Ranges. The obvious put-in is where it crosses the Napier-Taihape road, somewhere near the Taihape end of the Gentle Annie section. The usual take-out is at Whanawhana – same as for the Ngaruroro. The Taruarau joins the Ngaruroro after most of the whitewater. A Google fly-over reveals a winding, narrow river with steep-sided gorges, a road and bridge in the middle reaches, plus several zones of definite gradient and large rock formations. Egarr describes the river as having 4 sections starting with a grade II-III, then a section of III-IV – the “Top Gorge” above the Pohokura road bridge. Another section of II-III is then followed by more III-IV in a very steep section above the Ngaruroro confluence. Egarr suggests that this “Bottom Gorge” contains the hardest rapids on the river – up to IV+. Hawkes Bay CC website classes the Taruarau as IV but suggests it can be run in 6-7 hours with high flows. Egarr adds that the trip is committing with difficult rapids and is not to be taken lightly. Sometimes I have noticed in the past that Egarr’s descriptions can be slightly over-stated and may be “tainted” by the use of long fibre-glass boats. In hindsight his Taruarau description seems fairly close to the mark in my opinion anyway.
The Taruarau has been on my todo list of rivers for some time and it has been a while since I ran a new river. Labour weekend seemed the ideal time with slightly higher flows but not too much water and not too cold (hopefully).
Our Hutt crew had been decimated by a AUCC/VUCC Motu trip plus the traditional Kupe CC Buller trip but luckily Kei and Brian were keen and available. Even more lucky was that Brian’s wife, Judith, was going to be in Napier and was happy to do shuttle for us.
We decided to take overnight gear and split the trip into 2 days as we figured we would be relatively slow not knowing the river etc. We persuaded Brian to take the Club’s Huka to allow for more gear storage and to avoid getting tail-stood.
On arrival at the put-in we found the level to be slightly above summer flows but still milky green – this seemed to be a good level for a first time. Packing completed (no mean feat) we headed off into the wilderness. At this stage we were on the western side of the Sparrowhawk Range. The river was nestled amongst steep-sided hills. Kowhais lined the banks in a sea of yellow, their flowers providing a very picturesque setting. We looked up between rapids at one stage to see 3-4 deer scampering away above us.
The river was quite busy but the rapids were all II or III and easily negotiated with 1-2 eddy hops. Brian had a roll and took a while to adjust to the round hull of the Huka. Late in the afternoon we were pleased with our progress, that is until we arrived at the entrance to the Top Gorge.
We ran the entrance drop but could see that the next moves required scouting. We got out to scout and this is when we realized that the river had dramatically changed from a mellow II-III to a steep, committing gorge. Worse still we could see the next 2-3 drops but the last drop – a big one – was not fully visible. On river left was a powerful looking churning hole but the right side was out of view. We climbed a big rock which revealed more of what we could already see but not the final drop. Then we climbed up on river right and along but the terrain was very steep and overhanging vegetation blocked our view.
We were a bit stumped – none of us wanted to run such a rapid without knowing what lay ahead so we all agreed to walk around this part of the gorge. Of course that was easy said. We suddenly realized what it is like to drag/carry fully laden creek boats uphill and through bushes.
It took 20 minutes just to get away from the river but luckily it was on farmland. We had to climb very high on an old farm track. We all had to knuckle down to the task in hand, it was no good whinging of anything. But it sorely tested our energy reserves and determination. On top of the heavy weight, the wind was gusting like a Wellington norwester with driving rain. About an hour later we arrived at the top of the next hill and again we tried to look down into the river. However, the steep-sided gorge would not reveal its secrets. We could also see that at the next bend the gorge narrowed up even more and it would not be possible to portage out of there. We felt our energy reserves would not stretch to another hike out of the gorge and given the (late) time of day we decided to continue along the farm track.
We had a rough idea of where we were on the river and where the farm tracks would take us. Kei had brought his topo map and even though I had forgotten my laminated map I could remember most of the major features. We figured that the track would eventually lead to Pokohura – a farmhouse and a road which led back to the river by the bridge where we were expecting to camp. The rain and wind howled around us but luckily our dry tops kept us warm. It would have been easy to get hypothermia if we’d stopped for too long in those conditions. At one stage we thought we might have to make camp in the middle of the farm – with no water apart from a dirty looking stock watering hole.
Our boat-dragging, energy-sapping adventure finally ended at about 7.30pm Sat night when we arrived at the middle bridge below Pokohura station. It had taken us over 3 hours to walk the last section of river. And of course the river at the bridge was so mellow! We found a great camping spot next to the river. We built a small fire (very small) and set up the fly. Brian produced the mother of all groundsheets and we were ready to cook dinner – a series of boil-in-the-bag affairs. Kei added a bit too much water and had soup!
When we hit the sack there was a small issue – we had a slight slope and the groundsheet was so slippery that we kept sliding down to the bottom. But luckily Brian decided to sleep across the end and provided something to lean against. Thanks Bri. It rained during the night but the fly worked well and we kept dry, more or less!
After a hearty breakfast we were ready to look at our day. We were concerned that our progress might not be as fast as expected and even that we might not be up to the higher grade rapids in the Bottom Gorge. The map showed very steep sided hills in the bottom gorge and we knew it was scrub rather than farmland. We had arranged to meet Judith at 2pm at Whanawhana.
In the end we all agreed to walk out to the Napier-Taihape Road (along Pokohura Rd) and get a ride somewhere so we could call Judith and rearrange our shuttle.
The road was about 14 km but after about 7km we came across the house of Alan Roberts and his family. We saw Alan drive off in his ute and head up the road towards us. We were expecting a telling off as we knew there was limited access to Timahanga Station. But Alan was most concerned for our safety. We explained our predicament and he drove us to his house where we met his wife and son. After a cup of tea we rang Judith and changed our meeting point. We were most grateful to Alan and his family for their help and understanding. We even got a ride to the Napier-Taihape Road.
After Judith arrived we collected our kayaks and headed back to Napier – our trip was not quite what we had expected but still successful in that we had a good day of paddling on a new river and managed to avoid getting into too much trouble. It would have been easy to come to grief in that bottom gorge without much time or food etc left.
Thanks to Kei and Brian for being such good companions in troubled times, to Judith for shuttling and to Alan Roberts and his family for helping us out.
AB
