Wellington Tramping and Mountaineering Club
Enjoying the great outdoors since 1947
An epic weekend spent picking off a few huts in the Travers valley in Nelson Lakes National Park. The trip began with us all meeting at Wellington Train Station to catch a 3.45pm sailing to the South Island. With Daniel and Mon in the group, we spent a lot of time talking about club policies! … Read more
We started our long weekend adventure on Thursday afternoon, catching the Interislander to Picton. Thankfully, the recent technical issues plaguing both the Interislander and Bluebridge ferries (and recent cyclones!) were not an issue, and it was a perfectly smooth sailing. We drove to St Arnaud and pitched our tents at the DOC campground at Kerr Bay ($20). Great … Read more
Summary Day 1: Boyle Village – Magdalen Hut Day 2: To Waiau Hut via Boyle Flat, Rokeby, Anne and Lake Guyon Huts (side trip) Day 3: To Blue Lake Hut Day 4: To Upper Travers Hut via West Sabine Hut Day 5: To Cupola Hut Day 6: To Coldwater Hut via John Tait & Hopeless … Read more
I love a mystery and was intrigued when this tramp appeared on the schedule: Top of the South Mystery Tramp. Jump on the ferry and go on an adventure! Interesting rock formations, travel on the tops and along a river. Good snacks and optional river swims. Expect up to 6 hours walk every day. Track … Read more
Who names a mountain “Hopeless”? By all accounts, “an early survey party with a poor attitude”! Three days before our ferry left Wellington, I carried out my standard ritual of emailing all the trip plans to my Dad. He usually replies with “Thanks Son, be safe out there” or encouraging words to that effect. This … Read more
Holy Cupola! A snowcraft graduates ascent of Mt Cupola in Nelson Lakes National Park Spring was marching on, the snow was melting, and enthusiasm for alpine trips appeared to be on the wane. I felt like I hadn’t squeezed enough out of my snowcraft experience yet, so when Tony G offered Angelus trip-goers another bite … Read more
Taking an extra day off work for this adventure was bittersweet – 6 interested punters were whittled down to just 3 as we were the only ones who could get the time off before the closing date for the trip. However in the end we were glad we did it as we ended up with … Read more
To the South Island with racks and ropes and heavy packs. We started out early on Thursday with a water taxi across Lake Rotoiti to Coldwater hut, weather calm and sunny, couldn’t ask for more for the 8-9 hour trudge up the Travers valley. Lunched at John Tait in fairly good time and continued up … Read more
The trouble with a working world is that we never seem to have enough time to complete the trip that one wants. This year was different and Anzac day fell on a Wednesday so with just two days leave we could manage a full five day trip. Plenty of time, none of this let’s run … Read more
I looked at the weather forecast on the Monday and it looked alright. Rain on the Friday and Sunday and clear on the Saturday, the climbing day By Tuesday the forecast had gone rotten, two fronts passing through one hitting on our Saturday. I sorted out a good book and made sure we had some … Read more