A Snowy Sojourn at Lake Dive

On Friday night we ended up going to Waigongoro Hut, which was less than an hour from the road end to save us a chilly night camping. The track is reasonably straight forward with one creek crossing, which can be avoided by taking a slightly different track lower down from the carpark. It climbs gently … Read more

Cattle Creek

This trip shared the van with a group going to Howletts Hut. The Cattle Creek road end had a campsite and toilets, so it made sense to stay there on Friday night. It had been arranged that we had enough tents to use at the road end, but there was a fresh set of dry (and light) … Read more

Lake Rotoiti Circuit, Nelson Lakes

This trip was an EM tramp heading for Cupola Hut in the Travers Valley, Nelson Lakes, led by Richard. Six of us signed up for the trip and several of us had been on trips led by Richard before. We were to share the trip with a medium group led by Mike Moore, who were … Read more

Kawakawa-Mangatoetoe Traverse

Billed as an Easy-Medium, the Kawakawa Hut trip sounded like just what I needed after a long break from overnight tramping and a hideous cold. As benefits a trip of this grade, proceedings commenced with a coffee at Martinborough and it was 11am before the actual tramping began. Being new to the area, I’d done … Read more

Aotea Track – Great Barrier Island

On Friday the third of June seven intrepid Wellington trampers congregated in Auckland airport to await the beautiful scenic thirty minute flight to Great Barrier Island. The Island is serviced by two airlines (Barrier Air and Fly My Sky) and by a slight miscommunication as a group we were split between the two airlines but … Read more

Te Puia Lodge – Makino Hut

4th June – Mangatutu Hot Springs to Te Puia Lodge and Mangatinoka Hot Springs Total Walking Time – 2.5hours Total Hot Pool Time – 2.5hours After a long drive our group arrived at the Mangatutu Hot Springs camping ground at around 1:30am on a very cold evening. Our road weariness and the cold, hard ground … Read more

Croesus Track: An Historic Route through the Paparoas.

The Croesus Track is located in the Southern Paparoa Range in the West coast region. This track is one of finest surviving examples of a miners’ track (1881) on the West Coast. A group of 12 from WTMC, lead by Matt and assisted by Catherine started our adventure on Thursday night of Easter weekend 2016. … Read more

Angelus Peak – Nelson Lakes

My optimism was slowly fading as the week progressed. The forecast was predicting strong winds, rain, and near freezing temperatures. But as we baked in the afternoon sun waiting for the ferry, that forecast seemed like a distant reality. After a sunset across the Cook strait, a sail through the sounds lit by the full … Read more

Familes Group finally do Jumbo-Holdsworth

After the last attempt to go around the loop was stopped due to bad weather in the Tararuas (how surprising!), some of the punters were more than keen for another shot. Fortunately a good weather window coincided with the trip schedule. Some us were left waiting at the road end ready to go, wondering where … Read more

Mole Hut

It’s never a good sign when wet weather gear has to come out of the pack before even reaching the van at platform 9, but thankfully this wasn’t a sign of things to come for the WTMC trips heading to Nelson Lakes for Labour weekend. We boarded the ferry at 5pm, and by the time we … Read more