Pouakai Circuit

Jul 22, 20245 min read

Day 1

We all met at my house keen to get on the way to Taranaki. When we left I was delighted by how little traffic there was.

We made our way to Otorohanga where we stopped for dinner. Then we continued on the mission to Taranaki.

I was playing bangers like “starships” by Nicki Minaj and “boyfriend” by Justin Beiber while we made our way down the topsy turby SH3.

We finally arrived at the camp house. When we got there all of the bunk rooms were locked except one of them. We walked in on this doc worker just sitting on the floor by himself. He said he had booked the entire room for himself. See we checked the email and went on a hunt for the room key.

After successfully finding it we headed back and hit the sack.

Day 2

We woke up and enjoyed the sunrise over the camphouse. We chowed back breakfast, had showers and headed off.

Down the road we went to the start of the track. It started by walking through this chill downhill forest, and I really enjoyed it.

We enjoyed snacks of Hangehange, as we headed down, and down and down dreading the uphill to come. We crossed a few rivers, and made it to our lunch spot.

Beth realised she ran out of water so we went on a slightly harrowing adventure down to the river to retrieve some for her.

Success!

We all then started the slog up to the top of Henry’s peak. It was a bit of a grind of 600m of elevation, but when we got to the top it was all worth it. Although we were getting blasted as ever by the wind.

We soon headed on our descent down to the hut and the tarn. When we arrived at the tarn, we got some beautiful shots but soon the wind picked up and it was hard to get any more pictures. I had dreams of a group picture which I was determined to get but everyone kept getting to the hut so we headed up the final hill to the hut.

When we arrived to the hut there was a big family and this crying toddler. Let me tell you by the end of the night I hated that toddler. Although we enjoyed the warm hut and kicking our feet up. As the sunset set in, I was keen to head back to the tarn to get a golden hour picture.

When we arrived the wind was too high and we couldn’t get our shot but it was still a lovely walk in the sunset.

In the evening we made lots of tea and enjoyed lots of good food. Although I made too much couscous for my curry and honestly it was punishing to finish.

The toddler was mad about her beans and sausages for dinner and honestly I was envious from my mid curry.

We all decided to go to bed, and were excited for a new day of adventure.

Day 3

We started the morning off with breakfast. Beth reckoned she only got 1 hour of sleep which I felt really bad for her. She was really out of it.

In the morning Alex had a bit of a crook guts so he called his mum and got picked up by her (at the end of the road). Now we were down to four brave trampers.

Beth decided to just go straight to the hut because of how fatigued she was.

We decided to ascend to the Pouakai summit. We left our bags at the bottom as it was just a little side mission. The objective today was suddenly missions as the next hut was so close (only two hours).

When we reached the top it was a great view and an achievement for Anna since she had a poster of great peaks and that was one of them!

On the way down we had important conversations like “what defines a summit and a peak” and “can you dye your hair for laser hair treatment.”

Then we went back to Pouakai tarn lunch, I was still really really keen to get that photo aye. When we got there it was magical. Perfectly flat, it made me so happy. We got part of my dream, we got a group photo with 3/5 of our members. I was stoked with that though.

We enjoyed lunch and took loads of photos before heading down to Holly hut.

This was a really short walk but extremely scenic, it was beautiful. A highlight for me was walking across the swamp. It was a nice boardwalk and so easy to walk across.

When we finally arrived at Holly hut our second evening of accommodation we put all of our stuff down but immediately wanted to continue to our other side trip of the day to Bells Falls.

We descended and descended and descended nervous thinking about the way back up. The falls were kind of worth it. I didn’t find the descend or the ascend that hard, but if you find that kind of thing hard you might be better off giving it a miss.

We then all enjoyed our dinner. I decided to have noodles cause #treaturself. We enjoyed nice yarns with people in the hut and had a nice warm night by the fire. Someone brought marshmallows which was so awesome!

Day 4

We all woke up frozen since the fire went out, but we knew it was the day to go so we all got out and scoffed our breakfasts. Going to the toilet this morning was punishing because of how cold it was!

We then packed our bags and headed off in a rush to get back to Auckland at a decent time. The trail was lovely as usual. This time we walked across many rock falls paths which we were told by doc signs to keep moving due to the risk of further rock fall.

Taranaki had a little hat on it from the clouds. As we began to descend to the car, I got notification that Donald Trump had been attempted to be assassinated. With that riveting news I was even more keen to head down to read up on it more.

When we arrived at the carpark it was reasonably busy due to it being a Sunday. Some kind souls let us enter the camphouse to go to the toilet. Then we headed down the mountain home.

Stopping in New Plymouth for a cheap Pak N Save, which I did do my entire weekly shop at or course. We then headed home. We had a quick stop at the Three Sisters of Elephants rock but were disappointed to realise the tide was too high for us to get there. We decided to move on to another beach and went for a quick swim there!