Totara Flats from Mangatarere Road End

The trip started with an early Saturday morning meet at Wellington train station. It was a grey morning and a bit drizzly but with half the group on their inaugural WTMC trip (Ravi, Phoebe and I) and Lettie on debut as trip leader, nothing could dampen our spirits. We set off with the Sayers Hut … Read more

Totara Flats (and the best veggie shepherds pie ever tasted in the Tararuas…)

The rain on Friday night gave us an excuse for a very leisurely Saturday morning start to the tramp. We met at the Railway Station at 7.30am, and stopped for breakfast and a coffee at the Wild Oats Café in Masterton around 9am. So it wasn’t until 10.10am that we were at the Holdsworth road … Read more

Totara Flats Loop

On Friday night at the Holdsworth roadend our group decided not to bother setting up a tent and a fly. As it was fairly gusty but reasonably warm and only lightly drizzling, it seemed simpler to set up mats and sleeping bags in the semi-open shelter by the carpark (including underneath the picnic table), and … Read more

Mangatarere Roadend to Sayers Hut in the Rain

There’s no point in roughing it until you have to, so Saturday morning breakfast was not cold muesli with reconstituted milk, but salmon on sourdough and espresso from the French patisserie in Greytown. I couldn’t resist slipping a tuna mayo roll from there into my pocket too. Mangatarere Roadend is a place less travelled. It’s … Read more

A bit of imagination

This, according to trip leader Tony, was all we needed to find the track back up the hill from Totara flats to the ridge via the old unmaintained hunters’ track: Imagination, plus a map and a compass. And find it we did – battling through long grass and a hailstorm in the process. For a … Read more

Sayers Hut

Weather Fine start on Saturday, overcast developing with a couple of light showers in the afternoon cloud breaking for a clear Sunday.  No wind. Track conditions The track appears to be infrequently maintained; so although generally pretty easy to follow, there are quite a few tree falls which haven’t been cleared so there is a … Read more