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.

Not your usual trip report

This trip report is a collaborative effort written much like a childhood story game. The first few sentences were emailed to the next punter who added their thoughts who then emailed it to the next punter, and so on. This could make for either a very interesting or a very incoherent report! Our tramp began … Read more

Pouakai Circuit, Egmont National Park

Most of my tramping gear is kept in the attic, to be fished out every month or two. There are several pairs of everything up there, which can lead to mix-ups on occasions. One of those occasions was when I agreed to lead the Pouakai Range circuit trip in Egmont National Park in May. The … Read more

Matiu/Somes Island, Wellington Harbour – Family trip

A day out to the island in the middle of Wellington harbor, catching up with old tramping friends I have not seen for years, learning some history and kids having the chance to run and run and run! All in all, a very relaxing chilled day … a highly recommended day trip. Legend has it … Read more

The name is Tongue and Meats! A geriatric old codger braves the Ranges of Everlasting Mud and Misery

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

The world was about to end so we got high!

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

Lake Christabel trip

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

The Zampa Not Tops Trip – Is this what a MF Trip is really about?

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

A day walk in the Wellington Botanic Gardens

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

Forever wild?! – 2011 FMC Conference

On June 11th and 12th the FMC celebrated its 80th anniversary with a two day conference at Te Papa. The Federated Mountain Clubs of NZ (FMC) is an organisation which operates at a national level, representing 82 tramping & mountaineering clubs (including the WTMC) and through these a total of more than 15,000 members that … Read more

Lodge Update – July 2011

We hear that snow is finally falling on the mountain.  We’re very pleased to hear that as a suggestion has been made that we need a working party to produce snow. As you know the school holidays are not too far off.  The week 17 -19 July has 19 spaces available as at 20 June.  … Read more