Struck by the ‘wanderlusts’ just as the weather was getting colder, David Coxon decided that a visit to the Mangatutu hot springs, on Puketitiri Road, inland from Napier, was just what the Doctor ordered.

Mangatutu Hot Spring is one of those places which is well known to the locals but little known elsewhere in the country.

For us it made the perfect leisurely three-day trip complete with a couple of nights camping. Our search for a campsite turned up Waiwhenua Farmstay and Riverside Park, off the Napier – Taihape road, where we duly booked an unpowered site for the next long weekend.

After our traditional late start on the Saturday morning, and a short fight with the traffic in the Hutt Valley, we met up with Ashley and Gillian at Featherston and headed north for an uneventful run all the way to Hastings, where we refuelled for the rest of the weekend. It was then a short run up the Napier – Taihape road, turning off onto a gravel road for the last few kilometres to Riverside Park.

The entrance was well signposted, but as we followed the arrows through a landscape denuded by recent logging, I was wondering what we would find when we got to the campsite. In fact, the camp site was on a sandy riverbank and was well occupied when we arrived, with a very pleasant family feeling. Except for the toilet and shower block, which was a quite new and substantially built structure, the overall feel was comfortable rustic and functional, in keeping with the remoteness of the area.

Mmmm home-made pizzas

One strange feature was that the kitchen block, including barbecue and wood-fired pizza oven were on the old river flat, about ten metres above the camping area. This made sense when I found out from one of the regular visitors that the camp is closed in winter because the river is likely to flood the camping area. Once set up, we moved up to the kitchen for home-made pizzas and a relaxing beer, socialising with other campers as we shared the use of the cooking facilities.

Sunday was our main exploring day. Based on our research when booking, it looked as if we needed to go back to Hastings to get across the Tutaekuri River before heading up Puketitiri Road, however, chatting to the people running the camp, we discovered that the road a kilometre back the way we came in led to a ford over the river, from where we could go directly across to Puketitiri Road, saving over an hour of driving each way.

How could we resist some real off-roading? This is why we tour in fully capable 4WDs. In practice, this was an easy, three-part crossing, although with the final section having a fairly soft base, I would not recommend it for anything other than a high-clearance 4WD. Once through the ford, it was about a 45min run on gravel roads through very attractive back-country scenery before we reached Puketitiri Road.

Although sealed where we joined it, once we had passed a few small settlements, and were working our way further up the valley, the road turned to gravel and slowly started to deteriorate, becoming quite corrugated in places. Eventually, following the signs for the hot springs, we turned onto Makahu Rd. This was quite a narrow road that felt like a DOC access road, complete with fords, some of which had narrow, light-weight bridges as easier alternatives.

It took us another easy half hour to navigate this road, finally stopping at the first of two car parks, by now ready for lunch. A friendly camper told up which track led where and warned that the track down to the pools was steep and the track to the river was very steep.

Sheer drop

We had plenty of time, so enjoyed a lunch break under a shady tree with views over the bush-clad hills. We also discovered that the gap in the bush behind the table that gave the best views was also the top of an unfenced sheer drop to the river about 70m below. After lunch we took the slightly less steep track that dropped down into a gully where the steaming hot stream flowed a down to the hot pools.

While the hot pool had originally been just a muddy depression in the stream bed, there was now a well-tamed area with two mini swimming pools in a decking surround. We were expecting the pools to be too crowded to be worth using, but to our surprise there was only one family group there, and we enjoyed a very different hot pool experience.

It was the first time I have hoped the pool was firmly fastened down! The walk back up to the car park was not as bad as we expected, so we decided to go down to the river, hoping to find a spot where the hot stream and the river mixed to give a warm experience. This track was very steep, partly because some of the stairs cut into the steeper sections had washed out, making an interesting clamber in places. We ended up too far upstream to find any hot water but wading in the river was a refreshing experience that cooled us down for the steep climb back up to the carpark.

One last detour

Our final detour for the day was to take a side road, Whittle Road, up to a lookout we had been told about. This was a steep climb on quite a rough track, ascending over 400m to a final height of about 1060m at the lookout. After exploring the lookout, which was also a local 4WD playground by the look of it, we continued to the road end at the start of a few tramping tracks for a final coffee in the shade before heading back to camp.

It was on the run back, where I was switching between 4WD on the gravel and 2WD on the seal, that I unexpectedly lost 4WD, with what seemed to be an electrical problem. Luckily, apart from the ford by the camp site, I was only using 4WD to improve stability so I continued a little more slowly in 2WD, checking every few minutes in case the 4WD would re-engage. After a couple of tries it did, and it continued to work without problems for the rest of the trip.

As is often the case, the trip back seemed shorter than the trip out, and we got back to camp a little earlier than expected, enjoying another pleasant and social evening.

Given how far north we were, our final day was never intended to be anything other than a run back to Wellington, but to get away from SH2, we turned off at Waipukurau and went down to Porangahau then on to Wimbleton, detoured to the coast at Herbertville for lunch then from Wimbleton followed Route 52 all the way back to Masterton, just to drive the whole road in one go. This was a pleasant and scenic end to the trip, just leaving us with the final SH2 run over the Rimutakas and back to Wellington, ending a very different long weekend,

Footnote

As a footnote, I had the 4WD system checked out by an auto electrician, but no fault could be found. We are assuming that it was a dirty connection at one of the plugs that fixed itself with more vibrations and was finally “repaired” by the fault-finding work. Time will tell.