Wellington Tramping and Mountaineering Club
Enjoying the great outdoors since 1947
It didn’t take long for me to realize, on my second weekend back in Wellington, that I did not have the fitness to tackle the Mid-Otaki trip I had put on the schedule. Emily wisely suggested Island Forks instead, and I adopted the idea as my own. We had a romantic drive from Wellington to … Read more
Water is one of the biggest tramping hazards in New Zealand. Too many anxious moments in moving water have given me an appreciation of how treacherous moving water really is. Seemingly little mistakes can have big consequences and there is no opportunity to back off or change your mind when you are caught in the … Read more
INTRODUCTION Following the great success of the first WTMC packrafting instruction course our chief-guide Richard organised a second one – which helped to alleviate our feelings of envy. Packrafting is a very exciting way to travel down a river by using a special inflatable kayak weighing in at just over 2 kg and folding to … Read more
The Otaki water catchment had little to no rainfall until Friday before our trip. On Friday morning, it started raining in various degrees from 1 to 5 mm per hour until Friday evening. Around midnight before our trip, it rained again 2 to 3 mm per hour, then the weather turned to dry and overcast … Read more
Our adventure began at 7:45am on the Saturday. We rendezvoused at platform 9 at the railway station. Everyone was very prompt and raring to go which meant we were on the road at 8am. The day was stunning: beautiful big blue skies and with the traffic playing nice and some skilful driving from Tash on … Read more
What a lark! Hooning down the Tararua rivers in a 1.6 kg inflatable dinghy—including all the kit (floatation device (PFD) and paddle). Welcome to the wonderful world of packrafting! Having had a very harebrained thought to do just the same thing by myself a few years ago, except with questionable gear, no training and no … Read more
This course was a first for the Club. Packrafting is a relatively new outdoor activity in NZ and while a few members had some limited experience, none had any formal training. As part of the schedule planning Richard House managed to get Packrafting NZ from Expedition X Ltd, based in Te Anau, to come up … Read more
