Not your usual Tararua tramp

We were rushing to get out of town on Friday night and eat a fast dinner, because David Heffernan and Shay had planned to tackle the SK challenge – the North to South crossing of the Tararuas in under 48 hours. Since the Medium and Medium-Fit trips for the weekend only had one punter and … Read more

Kepler Challenge 2013

I decided to enter the Kepler Challenge after being inspired by Mal Law’s book, One Step Beyond, which had the message that ordinary people could achieve extraordinary things. So after reading this I was inspired to sign up for the Kepler Challenge which would be double the distance I had run in any race, and … Read more

Skyline Track

A varied group of people we were. From unemployed I.T. Geeks to people who had to attend work phone meetings even on the Saturday! Yes – one of us had to be in on a phone meeting for at least the first few kilometers. Personally, I would like a job like that – going for … Read more

Pencarrow Head

This trip report is brought to you by the letter ‘L’. L is for Lighthouse of which there were two. One was old and one was new(er). L is also for Lakes. Again there were two. One was circumnavigated and the second just viewed from afar. Finally, L is for Lunch – an important supporting … Read more

Family Trip to Totara Flats Hut

Summerlike conditions with bright sunshine and highs of early 20’s were promised and delivered for the weekend, and a couple of keen lads were ready to go. The track up to the Holdsworth/Totara Flats junction seems to have been continuously upgraded towards a metalled highway of constant gradient. In the warm weather, a break at … Read more

Bushcraft River Crossings

The majority of Team Bushcraft had made every effort to keep their feet dry on the way to the campsite. But when it came to learning about river crossing later that afternoon, it was immediately apparent that notwithstanding our previous efforts, no amount of side-stepping, tree-clinging or stunning athleticism would change the fact that we … Read more

Cow Creek

This was one of those trips that makes you think the grading system really should have an extra category so you can get a feel for how demanding the “EM” is really going to be. Of course you should be able to tell that from looking at a map (note to self…read map more closely … Read more

A week at Tasman Saddle

What’s better than going up a mountain without having to walk to its foot? Yes correct – going up lots of mountains without horizontal walking. And that was basically the entire plan for this trip.     We flew down to Christchurch on a Saturday morning, hopped into a rental car and drove down to Ashburton to … Read more

Mt Footstool (2767m)

  “Footstool? You really wanna climb a mountain with such a name?” – that was pretty much the reply I got from my boss when asking for a day off late October. I usually don’t care too much about mountain names, but I had to admit that it is a weird name, probably originating from … Read more

Weather Windows

The wind had subsided in downtown Wellington and the sun was making an attempt to peek through the clouds. ‘Maybe this bad run of weather is finally on the way out,’ we optimistically hoped as we made a plan B C and D due to yet another poor weather forecast. Plan A had been ruled … Read more