A place above the plains

There’s a piece of alpine paradise on Dunedin’s doorstep, home to rock tors and mountain  flowers. It is the Rock and Pillar Range, looming large above Middlemarch.

Veteran Dunedin climber Pete Strang reflects on one of his favourite places, and the efforts to resurrect Leaning Lodge Hut.

Highway 87’s relative emptiness is only making it a more popular passage through to Central Otago. The vistas are stunning and it feels like Central only minutes after leaving Outram.

It’s all there, the Lammermoor Range spreading west and south, and to the north and west the Rock and Pillar range rises up to meet you as you head for the sky out of Lee and Deep Streams.

It is not long before you are crossing the Taieri Gorge Railway track near Sutton and then you are into Middlemarch and looking for the wonderful Kissing Gate cafe, and not much further on the Middlemarch Museum where time stops still.

The coffee and lunch are excellent and if the day is scorching the parasols and garden trees provide shade. If there is the bitter bite of winter or even snow on the ground the cafe is warm and welcoming.

As you settle to your coffee you make note of the Rock and Pillar Range again, now much closer and to some of us it beckons. We are attached to these high hills, and indeed they are mountains, and we are surprised how many drive past them without even acknowledging their presence.

Our veneration of these hills is historical and significant.

The coffee in Middlemarch is just a taster for the journey ahead and the diversion we will be taking on our left under the lee of the mountains near Kinvara Station. This is known as the Kinvara Track on the map.

The Department of Conservation has a car park off the drive up to the station and from here on up it is definitely four-wheel-drive country. Some of us have memories of taking a VW Beetle up this track in years past loaded with skis and packs.

More lately it has been mountain bikes. No doubt e-bikes will be in the mix before too long if not already.

Sixty years ago I tried with my wife, Marion, on a Royal Enfield motorbike in a snow storm, but we came to grief, skis and all. Marion never forgot this adventure ... and the return journey tipping off in the drifts coming out of Deep Stream. Pushing the infernal machine in blizzard conditions to the hospitality of the Clarks Junction Hotel is an unforgettable memory.

Most times more recently I would follow the track, and in summer wander steadily upward in a world of tussock and snow grass waving in the wind, a wind that could howl in a norwester or bring snow from the south in the winter.

Cross-country skis or down-hill skis with skins are another mode of travel as the snow starts to creep down the mountainside into June and July ... a sure means of ascent.

Today we are in our four-wheel drive, eventually leaving the tussock behind to arrive in the distinctive herb fields at almost 1300m.

We can now spy the hut, our destination, across a gully to the south.

The views are stunning. To the north we can see the Kakanui Mountains and identify Macraes to the east, made easier at night because of the lights.

Above us is Castle Rock, a huge tor on the range, thrusting skyward. Other lesser tors pay obeisance.

It is a moonscape and with snow in winter the invitation to explore and go for Summit Rock at the top of the range at 1450 metres is irresistible. This mountain has us in its folds!

We extract ourselves from the vehicle and begin to sort out our packs and bags to carry gear over to the hut using a track across the top of the gully. It is not long before the primus is purring and a cup of tea is on the way. Others are brewing coffee and soup.

Why have I brought you to this quite magic spot, accessible but challenging, remote yet within the Dunedin city boundary?

It is because we are having to rebuild the hut, which was a replacement for the original Leaning Lodge built back in 1958 by the Otago Ski Club — then complete with a ski tow to access the steeper slopes.

By 1966 the down-hill skiers had left but another type of mountain adventurer remained and embraced the area and continues to use Leaning Lodge — now managed by a trust linked to the Otago Tramping and Mountaineering Club — as a refuge in starlight and storm.

It has become a much-appreciated and special hut for families experiencing the hills and their vagaries for the first time, for tramping parties, cross-country skiing, mountain-biking, for training courses in mountain survival, route finding, navigation, botany initiated by our esteemed patron Prof Sir Alan Mark, zoology in the presence of the giant weta, and geology in the stunning and distinctive rock formations as part of deep local faulting — absolutely Central Otago.

The current hut, built in 2014, does not meet the recently revised and stringent safety standards for a modern mountain hut at altitude in a harsh and challenging environment.

Katabatic winds are fierce here, as are snowstorms, and snow can almost bury the hut at times.

It needs to be replaced and we are looking for any help we can get, particularly financial.

It is hoped this large project can be completed in time for the centenary of the Otago Tramping and Mountaineering Club in 2023.

We have a site close to where the current hut sits and plans have been scrutinised by the Department of Conservation and Dunedin City Council architects, and approved by geo-tech experts.

Hut plans

• The Leaning Lodge Trust has the plans and approvals necessary to rebuild the lodge. Three University of Otago students have initiated a fund-raising campaign as a marketing degree project. Learn more at:

• www.facebook.com/leaninglodgetrust1

• https://givealittle.co.nz/cause/help-save-leaning-lodge-historic-otago-hut

• Or contact Peter Loeber (03)477-4895.