D61- Wairongomai hut to Orongorongo river

Leaving my last hut behind, i head briefly upstream, turning left up Oreore stream for 300m to the first major forks. At the forks i head up the steep but obvious spur between them. It starts off in quite tropical bush, nikau palms, ferns and tangled with supple jack, the weather's pretty tropical to, in the way of temperature not monsoons for once.
It soon enters open beech and excellent game trails make easy work of the 300m climb to the top. Feeling a bit groggy still i take it slow. At the top it flattens out into a bit of a plautoe, with no obvious feature to follow i head SW for 1km to the unobvious Wairongomai saddle. Two small creeks are crossed, only 1 show on the map, both flowing east into the head of the Oreore.
From the saddle you could drop down into the head of the Orongorongo NE branch, but it would likely be small and scrubby at this stage. I continue SW along the developing ridgeline to pt 480, then drop down the spur to the west, meeting the creek at the first fork on the true left.
It's much more pleasant then the other Rimutaka streams, with travel easy going on bush flats or in the small gravel bed. There's plenty of campspots here if u needed one. A set of antlers hanging off a tree indicate it's accessible by humans or the deer are very stupid. Its about 1km to the confluence with the Orongorongo main branch.
The Orongorongo river is bigger but just as easy, travel alternates between bush flats or shingle/bolders. There's a bit of wading and bolders hopping but nothing tricky. I pass a small hunters hut in thr bush, a bit rugged but functional, with 2 bunks a dirt floor and open fire. About 4km down i hit an atv track which siddles the river, crossing twice for 1.5km. It passes a weir and small building, following a pipeline supplying water to Wainuiomata. It's of course authorised access only, but i don't see the sighn untill the end, and there no one ever there by the look of it. The pipeline and track dissappear into a long, locked tunnel so I retern to the riverbed.
Its much the same as before, tho now scattered with human artifacts, steel, planks etc. Eventually i meet the confluence with boulder creek, and the Papatahi track, crossing the range from east to west. An obvious sign here states no unauthorised access upriver due to being a catchment area, tho ive seen several boot marks so either- whoevers authorised regularly checks for naughty hunters, or more likely- no one cares.
From here the nature of the valley changes, it becomes a wide expanse of shingle and large bolders, the surrounding peaks also change. One might think getting closer to sea, the rolling bush clad hill would get smaller and fade out- not in the Rimutaka's. They rise into much higher, jagged peaks, with the higher slopes too steep to support anything but scree and scrub.
I pick a perfect camspot on a terrace above the river, being on the eastern bank i get the last of the evening sun and it warm enough for a recreational swim for once.