Hiking in The Pinnacles

In our last week before starting work, we decided to take another trip out to the Wairarapa region about an hour outside of Wellington to explore an area called the Pinnacles - formally, the Putangirua Pinnacles. You can find more about the hiking trails around this area on the Department of Conservation website. We had driven out to the Wairarapa a few weeks previously on a fine day and discovered an incredible deserted beach. At the time, we didn't know about the Pinnacles which were about 15 minutes from where we'd been standing, so when we found out, we knew we had to go back.

If you're an extreme LOTR fan, you may remember this as the Path of the Dead in the Return of the King. The rock formations are an example of badlands erosion and seem very fragile. The website and trail head both warn walkers to watch out for falling rocks and they aren't kidding. There are two possible trails - one up through the river bed and the other across the top of the close by hills looking down on the Pinnacles. We decided we wanted to take the river bed path which took about 90 minutes one way and maybe 45 minutes back, but we stopped several times to take pictures. There were only two or three other cars in the parking lot and and throughout the entire hike we only crossed paths with three other people.  This was a Friday in the winter though, so perhaps it would be busier on a summer weekend.

The path wasn't very clearly marked - in our experience an exception for NZ trails, but with an environment that is changing rapidly due to erosion and in a river bed like this, its not terribly surprising. The way we walked up (not the real path) required us to cross over the riverbed several times. It hadn't rained in several days when we did this hike, so the river was really more of a stream, but I would not have wanted to try this route right after heavy rain. Chris enjoys taunting me in crossing streams as I hate the thought of getting wet, so I got my own back by taking a video of him doing a great Dirty Dancing impression :-).

Once you leave the park, there is an incredible drive up the side of a hill overlooking the beach we had previously discovered. On a clear day, you can see the outline of the South Island and just enjoy the incredible colors of the water and sky. 

On the way back, we stopped in a lovely little town called Featherston which is no more than a collection of half a dozen shops on the side of a road, but they have a good cafe and a great cheese shop called C'est Cheese where we bought some rather excellent aged Edam which we enjoyed with a glass of NZ wine looking out from our valley that evening.