Thread: Waihohonu, Tongariro NP

Originally Posted by Cigar

A wet walk in on Friday afternoon, but kept dry thanks to my wet weather gear and the boots I re-waterproofed last week. The latter part of the track was a flowing stream about ankle deep. Only two other people at he hut when I got there, about 10 of us there overnight, Saturday the hut was overflowing with people.
Spent Saturday morning glassing a valley, tucked off the ridgetop due to the biting southerly wind. Sun finally came out at 11:20. No deer seen, but some fresh tracks just above the bush. Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning were short hunts/sightseeing trips, some really fresh tracks seen but no deer. Headed back out at 10am, the trip out took 45 minutes less than the walk in. Saturday was cloudy with a cold wind, Sunday started with a heavy frost then nice and sunny.
I weighed my pack when I got home, and it was 29kg including the rifle. on the walk in it also had 1L of milk and some fresh B&E pie and casserole so would have been over 30 kg - I seriously need to cull some of what I took! I weighed a lot of the individual items this morning, and wrote down what I took and whether I used it or not.
An awesome hut, and some great scenery, even when the weather wasn't the greatest.

How long did it take you to walk in? Imagine if you had shot something your pack would have been bursting !

2.5 hours to walk in (lots of mini rest breaks!), 1hr 45min to walk out including chatting to a few trampers who were heading in.

Here's the raw and unedited video I took for the family.
https://youtu.be/qI9SZ2ADbOk

Some further info. I've been into the hut within the last 4 weeks.
Left vehicle in carpark with no problems.
Definitely easy walk in, and you want a bed early, but lunchtime people were having to sleep on the floor.
Tons of people around. I respect anyone who actually shoots something with the amount of human noise that you can hear for miles.
I was in for a catch up with people, so only had a couple of short hunts - nothing serious.
Targeted the area behind the old hunt. Found plenty of fresh sign and the odd bit of fresh prints on the mini scree slops behind the bush.
Saw nothing, but good opportunity to teach a couple of my young lads about sign etc.

I was in there a couple of weeks ago. More fresh sign around than late August so the deer are moving around more, though we didn't see anything (other than a hare).
Tuesday was a nice day, especially since it meant DOC delivered a load of firewood that morning. The forecast for Wednesday night was -5 and I wasn't looking forward to a hut with no firewood.
Wednesday was very windy, then the cloud moved in, followed by sleet and driving snow. The school group of 14 who headed for the Rangipo hut that morning ended up pulling the pin and arrived back at Waihohonu mid-late afternoon looking very wet and cold.
Thursday we woke up to an inch or two of snow, it made the walk out interesting and the Desert Road was closed but opened about the time we got to the carpark. Going on the prints on the track a red hind and yearling had come out of the low scrub not too far from the carpark and followed the track all the way to the Te Mako bush - they probably decided to head for decent cover when it started snowing!

Originally Posted by Cigar

I was in there a couple of weeks ago. More fresh sign around than late August so the deer are moving around more, though we didn't see anything (other than a hare).
Tuesday was a nice day, especially since it meant DOC delivered a load of firewood that morning. The forecast for Wednesday night was -5 and I wasn't looking forward to a hut with no firewood.
Wednesday was very windy, then the cloud moved in, followed by sleet and driving snow. The school group of 14 who headed for the Rangipo hut that morning ended up pulling the pin and arrived back at Waihohonu mid-late afternoon looking very wet and cold.
Thursday we woke up to an inch or two of snow, it made the walk out interesting and the Desert Road was closed but opened about the time we got to the carpark. Going on the prints on the track a red hind and yearling had come out of the low scrub not too far from the carpark and followed the track all the way to the Te Mako bush - they probably decided to head for decent cover when it started snowing!

Interesting - the sign I saw looked like a larger with smaller follower also

Anyone been in recently? What's the summer hunting like? Imagine a Still ok?
Cheers

I haven't been back since early October - now the Great Walk season has started it's harder (and more expensive) to get a spot at the hut. I reckon it would be worth a look if there's a decent weather window. No shooting within 500m of the track, but that still leaves a lot of good looking country.