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Altimarloch, Seddon

Mark Eaglesfield

Purple: areas with space for a lot of cars to park. Cyan: areas with space for at least one, but not many.

Screenshots of the NZ topographic map are licensed as CC BY 4.0 by Toitū Te Whenua Land Information New Zealand (LINZ).

Altimarloch (1693m) is a mountain in the Black Birch Range, on the north side of the Awatere Valley. The 4WD Black Birch Road goes from the valley all the way to the summit. I walked it as a long hike. The trailhead is around 25 minutes from the small town of Seddon and around 40 minutes from the large town of Blenheim.

For comparison, this road was in better condition than the Mt Arthur access road and the Ben Nevis access roads, both in the nearby Tasman District.

I am not aware of any other blog posts about running or walking this. That said, it’s a road. So you have less need to weigh up different hikers’ experiences when assessing it for yourself.

Time

It took me about 4 hours 40 minutes to reach the summit, and about 4 hours 45 minutes to return. This includes breaks along the way but not including my break at the summit. The whole hike was just under 10 hours.

Route

Driving southwest (from Seddon), I turned right into a broad entryway - in what I assume is Altimarloch Vineyard - and parked at its left edge. There are two dirt roads. The road on the right is a private farm track, so I took Black Birch Road on the left, which is an easement that goes all the way to the summit.

The hike has two portions: the ascent to the ridge, and the long walk along the wide, gently sloping ridge. Both of these are tedious, especially in wind. Driving part-way up would have been a smarter option. Most switchbacks have space for at least one car at their outer corner, and there are also three wider areas with space for numerous cars. On the topomap screenshot, I used purple to indicate the areas with space for numerous cars to park, and cyan to indicate areas with space for one or a few.

Above the first hundred meters or so, the ascent to the ridge has no shade in the morning, and the ridge has no shade at any time (well, except for the fact that nighttime is by definition shade). The descent from the ridge has patches of afternoon shade.

To my surprise, I saw a gray cat in the bushes by the switchback at around 850 meters. It ran away before I could get a photo. I hope it hunts small mammals, not birds.

Part-way up is the boundary between the vineyard/forestry and conservation land, which contains the ridge. Road quality doesn’t change.

The ridge was incredibly windy. Tapuae-o-Uenuku across the valley (2885m) was forecast to have gusts as high as 81 kph that afternoon. Altimarloch is almost as exposed, so I imagine its fastest gusts were almost as fast. Tapuae-o-Uenuku’s NIWA forecast is probably the best guide to Altimarloch’s weather, except for precipitation.

Some rocky tors along the ridge offer shelter from wind, if you cross the rough ground to reach them. An intriguing bunch of them near Point 1360, a few minutes off the road, look like they are worth exploring. But only on less windy days.

In addition to the tors, there are guided tours. As I walked uphill along the ridge, a convoy of tourists in five private 4WD vehicles, led by a tour company’s Toyota FJ cruiser, drove past me and parked at the summit before returning. I made the mistake of continuing to walk as they passed me the first time. The second time, I exited the road and turned my back on them, to avoid all the dust that their tires knocked into the air.

Although there are a few locked sheds on the summit, there is no proper wraparound windbreak. I found it impossible to sit entirely in the lee of the wind, because it would rush around every corner. Luckily, the shady side of the biggest shed was also the least windy.

I knew from the topomap and the forecasted windspeed that it wouldn’t be a particularly fun hike. I did it anyway, because it seemed like the best way to get views of both Tapuae-o-Uenuku and the Awatere Valley without driving all the way into Molesworth Station. I probably wouldn’t hike it a second time. However, I would happily drive back to the summit, provided that I owned the vehicle I was driving and could let some air out of the tires first.

If 1 is an easy track, and 4 is using hands and feet on exposed rocks, I give Black Birch Road a 1. Crossing the ridge to any tors would be a 2.

Looking west. Tapuae-o-Uenuku at far left. Mt Harkness at left. Wairau Valley and Mt Richmond Forest Park in center distance. Blairich at right. Pacific Ocean at far right.

Hunting

Beyond the vineyard/forestry area, i.e. once conservation land begins, the route is in a hunting area. Hunters are forbidden to “discharge firearms near tracks, huts, campsites, road-ends or any other public place.” I have hiked in more than 30 hunting areas, and only passed hunters twice - this wasn’t one of those hikes.

Here is the DOC topomap with all hunting areas visible.

What does this fine Scottish name mean?

…named by a member of the Scottish pioneer family, the McCraes, after Altimarlach, a battle between two Scots clans in Caithness, Scotland. Apparently in the Scots dialect, Altimarlach means ‘burn [stream] of the gravestones’, and presumably McCrae was inspired by the many tors on the mountain that could give the impression of large gravestones…

-Christopher Cookson, 2021, Marlborough Online

Pages about the drive

Nearby hikes

Area information

Gravestones and the ‘burn of the gravestones’

The Black Birch Range (of which Altimarloch is the high point at the far end) seen at center-left, from Taylors Pass cemetery. The cemetery is at the southern end of the road through the pass, rather than anywhere near the pass itself.

I drove through the pass on my return to Blenheim. A more challenging drive than the highway, it takes a similar amount of time. I don’t recommend it when in a rush.

Seen from the foot of Mt Robertson, on the coast north of Blenheim. Altimarloch is probably the dull shape just right of snowcapped Tapuae-o-Uenuku, the region’s highest mountain.