Community Contributed

Panatawaewae Ridge

Kete Horowhenua2020-03-23T16:52:49+00:00
A half day trip leaving from the end of Manakau North Road, Horowhenua, into a superb vantage point in the foothills of the Tararuas.
LocationManakau North Road, Horowhenua.

Over Easter 2008 I really wanted to do a new walk. Pippa has done the PanatawaewaeRidge walk a handful of times and was keen to do it again; so we did.

Access

To get to the start of the track you turn off State Highway 1 at North Manakau Road and head for the hills. Drive right to the end of the road, past the Rangers house on the right, and through 2 gates which you need to leave as you found them. The road becomes a metalled track at the Rangers house getting progressively rougher the further in you get. That said, we took my beautiful 1997 Holden Commodore exec with sports suspension in..... I wouldn't recommend it on hindsight but that might just be the girly bit of me getting anxious whenever the underbelly scraped a high bit of the road. Other cars went in fine but you do need to drive carefully and avoid pot holes, rocks etc. You can leave your car at the Ranger's house and walk in (3km) and there would be parking for 1 or 2 parks at each of the 2 gates I would think. Interesting observation: a guy out jogging opened the first gate for us and beat us to the car park....

Once at the end of the road there is a carpark and a beautiful long drop and a 5 minute walk will take you the river which is a perfect picnic spot (especially after the walk much to the dogs delight). Once parked, start walking back up the road and the track starts on the right about 500m up. It is a tricky wee thing to find but is marked by a 4inch tall orange triangle on a tree.

The Track

This track is great. It is a gentle continuous gradient, soft underfoot (although I suspect very wet in winter) and affords several lovely glimpses off the edge of the bluff down into the gorge below. The track is wide and comfortable to walk along, following an old bush railway cutting.

After 1.5 - 2 hours - depending on how fit you are you will come to an old fence with a stile. Climb over and head on through the cutting to your left. There are a few orange triangle markers to guide you. After 5 minutes or so you come to a patch of open farmland and a magnificent view out over Horowhenua.

Apparently if you head down the ridge towards the sea for about 15 minutes you will find an old log hauler; turn left where the track separates and the log hauler is in the bush on the left.

There are two ways home:

1. Back the way you came (which took us a very easy 50 minutes) or

2. [Yet to be tested!] Return to the turnoff to the log hauler and take the right hand path and follow the ridge until the treemarked with the plastic icecream container lid on the right. From here a track leads down steeply downhill. The downhill track markers are blue, and not obvious, while the uphill markers are orange. You will hit a stream at the bottom which you follow downstream, on either the bank or the streambed, eventually arriving at a well formed track leading back to the carpark. The stream route involves several stream crossings.

While this is a typical Tararua walking track and shouldn't be taken lightly, some of us did wear light sandshoes rather than tramping boots and it was fine. I preferred boots for the ankle support and it made trudging through the rough and wet bits a non event.

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