Wellington Tramping and Mountaineering Club
Enjoying the great outdoors since 1947
Check out the latest news and trips reports below or view the archives using the menu on the left. If you want to know more about the newsletter including submitting stories, see Newsletter>Publication Details. To learn more about the club, check the top menu. Some links will take you to the old website, but content will eventually move to this site.
A summer trip to Mt Ruapehu is a favourite of all of ours, so quite a few of us headed up for the family tramping trip in March. It ended up that we had three trips in one, with all of us doing different things at different times. Here are three perspectives on this trip. … Read more
This Easter trip promises to be a sort of easy-going natural history expedition. That’s what Illona’s billing suggests: moa bones, caves, an asbestos mine, a historic hut, rock shelters as well as Kahurangi’s flora and fauna, plus gourmet dining every night. We arrive late at Flora Saddle car park on the Thursday night and pitch … Read more
Contemplating our wounds during lunch half way through the scrub bash back to the tops of the Douglas Range, someone remarked that this was like childbirth: we’d forget the pain and do it all again. That certainly rang true for three of us. Sharron, who’d laboured here with David and me five years before, had … Read more
Fair Weather Trampers: in the NZ bush with the Cock & Bull Tramping Club A book by Julia Millen with sketches by Barbara O’Reilly Writes Hill Press 156pages; original sketches & maps ISBN: 978-0-473-20009-1; $30 One summer morning a group of drinking mates set out from Owhiro Bay for a short walk. Twelve hours later, … Read more
Wow, what a glorious weekend! The weather gods were extra kind to the young trampers. This was the writer’s first tramp in … let’s say her son is nearly 17 and leave it at that. Her external frame pack was the focus much discussion but hey: isn’t retro in? I’m sure mustard coloured, swing jackets … Read more
With nine punters signing up rather early we were confident it would turn out to be a good weekend. And indeed, it was a weekend with a good atmosphere, made more so by the Paua Hut rat having been caught earlier this year. The rain during the days prior to the weekend meant that the … Read more
Out tramping again with WTMC for my second weekend in a row, we met at the station on a sunny Saturday morning for the 2.5 hour drive up to Mangahao Dam road end. The trip along the gravel road to the Upper Mangahao Dam is a long, bumpy ride in, taking about 50 minutes. We … Read more
The tramp started really well for me: I hadn’t been tramping in a number of years but thought I had all my gear together in one place since I had recently done a trip to cycle and camp the Otago Rail trail. So, I decided that I could leave packing my bag until 11pm on … Read more
On the weekend of March 10/11th, I went for my first overnight tramp with Dad. We were in a large party of 5 families. The youngest was only 6 months old! We set off on Saturday from Holdsworth carpark for Atiwhakatu hut – a distance of 5 kilometres. It was a beautiful sunny day, but … Read more
We just can’t pass up the chance to walk Sawtooth Ridge on such a fine day Awfully long way back to the car at Rangiwhahia but! It will be ok says Mike So decision made, we turned and headed North along Sawtooth Ridge on Sunday morning. It wasn’t supposed to work out this way, but … Read more