Wellington Tramping and Mountaineering Club
Enjoying the great outdoors since 1947
Are you from the Tongue and Meat tramping club?, the veteran Tararua Tramping Club member asked one of Hans’s punters in Atiwhakatu Hut on Friday night, when we arrived there after walking in for an hour and a half by torchlight from Holdsworth Lodge. No, she replied, clearly puzzled by such a strange name. Yes … Read more
Platform 9 at the train station, the usual story, but this weekend was different. The world was predicted to end, and the weather was forecast to be clear on Mt Taranaki… It was as if the stars were aligned. The plan, being to take the club vans to North Taranaki car park and a quick … Read more
I’m used to tramping with ‘Fit’ tramping groups. They are about efficiencyand speed of travel. In automotive terms they are the WRC of tramping; all carbon fibre, welded alloy and blowoff valves. They have a metaphorical go faster lever, so when the call goes out to kick it in the guts, the lever is thrown … Read more
No wonder the Medium Fit trampers make their trips sound so mysterious! I have been aspiring to be an MF for months, no maybe years, and I finally thought I dared to join one of the mysterious MF trips. Well, actually I was thinking that they might not tolerate me as a punter so I … Read more
The wind it blew, the rain it fell The weather bomb had hit Did this put us off our walk? No! (Well, maybe a bit.) No epic voyage did we plan Our spines were less than hardened With our kids our journey took us To the botanic gardens. With the gales blowing, the sleet a’lashing … Read more
Transitions…from CBD to backcountry within a few hours, from a toasty van into the pleasantly cool evening air, from road end car park onto a rooty track, and then into an overly toasty Atiwhakatu hut with windows wide open. Changing from a horizontal mattress to breakfast, to a vertical position while going up a steep … Read more
No one can say that it was an ‘early’ start at 10am, but then that is what the City to Sea day walk was offering us, an easy ramble with some sightseeing and chatter for five hours, on a Saturday. This is a very well known walk, described as a walkway that starts in the … Read more
As usual we met at the train station on Friday night for our trip to the Ruahines. We stopped for kebabs on the way and then in what seemed like no time at all were at the road end. We had a few hours to walk on the first night to get to Parks Peak … Read more
The closer it gets to a long weekend the more often the weather forecast pages are up on my Internet browsers. No different for this years Easter weekend. The weather patterns coming up over the West Coast of the South Island and over Arthur’s Pass were changing every time new data was uploaded, but had … Read more
Easter this year starts with rushing out of the office on Good Friday to meet the Easy/medium tramping crew at the station. On schedule, the caravan packed with eager trampers and heaps of backpacks starts towards Turangi. Just before 10pm we arrive at the backpackers and it takes less than 20 minutes until all of … Read more