This is a tale of two dogs. Saturday morning, eleven of us arrived with our van at the trailhead of Herepai. Upon arrival we were greeted by a dog – lets call him Rocky. Rocky ran alongside our car for the final 200 meters of our drive. His impressive sprint proved he could easily fill … Read more
Recently Chris Swallow set a new record for the Main Range Schormann – Kaitoke of 19 hours and 20 minutes – taking over 2 hours off the previous best time of 21 hours and 33 minutes set in 2104 by Matt Bixley and Grant Guise. You can now read his story here.
5-bar Tararua tramping A light-hearted ranking of tramping trips in the Tararua Range based on internet reception. Some people, particularly trampers, rejoice when heading into our wilderness while others have a fearful attitude towards these areas that they believe should be completely avoided—for they are places that they consider are hideous, desolate and uncomfortable—where people … Read more
The 2016 Tararua Calendar – a trip through the Tararuas from January to December By Harry Smith When you are an unemployed layabout, living on boiled rice and scavenged apple cores and reusing teabags six or seven times over, you will accept any freebie you can get your hands on. So when Tony Gazley offered me a free … Read more
There’s nothing like gale forecasts of 100 km/hr to lend the run-up to the weekend a slight nervous edge. But spirits were high in the minibus so I could only assume either the others hadn’t seen the forecast or that I was the mad one: that heading up to a ridge with that forecast was … Read more
The Southern Crossing is described by DoC as one of the “four classic tramps of the Tararua Range”, and is a trip that any Wellington-based tramper should tackle at least once. However, in the leadup to our trip the weather looked like it was going to spoil the plans, with gale winds forecast for the … Read more
The tramp to Waitewaewae Hut on the Saturday took us approximately 8 ½ hours, and 6 ½ on the Sunday. We believe we walked about 15kms each way, and may have got to over 600 meters above sea level. The route We started from Otaki Forks at the swing bridge by the picnic area. We … Read more
For those of you who think the Tararuas are a nice place to go tramping you may be interested in a 2016 Calendar that will continually remind you just how nice they really are and that you must go back there on a club trip sometime very soon. Those who dislike the Tararuas can still buy a calendar – and … Read more
Copies of the 2016 Tararua calendar will be available from Monday 3 August at Bivouac Outdoor, Mercer Street, Wellington. Cost $20 – cash only please.
The plan was to spend the weekend in the Ruahines but given the adverse weather conditions we reconsidered it and opted for a closer tramp to the Tararuas. Yes, the Tararuas are not known for their best weather conditions during winter, especially when it is raining, but since shoes and gear were already packed, we … Read more