Middle Hill Hut and Three Gorges, Kaweka FP, Saturday 12 March 2022
Banner Photo: The first “gorge” stream
Five trampers departed in two vehicles on a sunny day for our tramp through the Three Gorges. We arrived at the Middle Hill car park on Makahu Road at around 8.15 with a temperature of 7 degrees but it didn’t feel too cold because we soon warmed up after getting onto the steep track to Middle Hill Hut.
We had morning tea at the Makino turn-off just before Middle Hill Hut. Barry and I had a quick look at Middle Hill Hut before returning to join the others.
There was a hunter at the hut with his nice-looking bow and lethal-looking arrows. He said he was hunting deer, but with a range of only 50 metres it would be quite a challenge getting close enough. Sounds fun, though.
At this point, we said goodbye to Shona who wanted to go back the same way. Di gave her the car keys with the intention of moving one vehicle to the Makino car park, to save us from the usual final trudge back along the road.
Climbing out of the first “gorge”
After morning tea, it wasn’t long before we descended to the first of the three gorges. All three have lovely streams but in my view this is the nicest. It’s the biggest stream but very picturesque with sunlight dappling through beautiful beech trees. If I did this walk again, I would go to just the first gorge and then back to Middle Hill car park.
That’s not to say the rest is not worth it – the other gorges are also nice and there is plenty of beautiful beech forest, but the gorges seem to get progressively harder and getting to the top at the last one is a bit of a killer.
We had lunch at the top of the second gorge, just a little over half-way.
(I’m not sure why it’s called the Three Gorges, because there are clearly four separate streams.)
The map of our tramp, starting from the Middle Hill Hut car park and ending at Makino car park
After lunch, we had a further two descents and ascents with the final one up to the Makino turn-off being the toughest. I thought I was reasonably fit but I was definitely struggling at this stage. A good wake-up call to do more exercise…
The last section is mostly downhill and we arrived at the Makino car park at about 4.15, where Shona was waiting to take us back to the Middle Hill car park.
Overall, another nice day out with lovely Autumnal weather, and we got back to Park Island around 6pm.
Trampers: Di Reid, Johanne Karlsson, Barry Doak, Shona Tupe and reporter John Russell
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