Totara Flats from Mangatarere Road End

The trip started with an early Saturday morning meet at Wellington train station. It was a grey morning and a bit drizzly but with half the group on their inaugural WTMC trip (Ravi, Phoebe and I) and Lettie on debut as trip leader, nothing could dampen our spirits. We set off with the Sayers Hut … Read more

Big Day Out: Jumbo-Holdsworth in pictures

Group times (approximately): 8:00am Holdsworth Carpark – 9:00am slip – 9:50am Atiwhakatu Hut – 12:00pm Jumbo Hut – 3:00pm Powell Hut – 6.00pm Holdsworth Carpark.

Winter Womble to Tararua Tops

All photos taken by Tony S. Tony’s Tarn Ridge trip appealed to me for two reasons. The first being the physical challenge. The trip had an “MF” label that would usually have sent me screaming in the other direction. However, over the past few weeks I had done a number of long day trips and … Read more

Mick-ey Mouse Business in the Tararuas

Somewhere on the western side of the Tararuas, between the more popular spots around Otaki Forks and Poads Road end, is a selection of old meandering forestry tracks that go nowhere in particular. One of these, for reasons unknown to the author, is called the Mick Track. The Mick Track offers up the standard Tararua … Read more

Phillips Stream canyoning: keep your head down and drink from the side stream

For most of us the trip started on the rocks of Titahi Bay a week before learning canyon abseiling basics from Megan, David and Jay. Once we’d got the hang of hand signalling, figure of eights and locking off, we climbed the nearby ‘sheer cliffs’ (with only a handline) for some real descents. Megan and … Read more

Angle Knob Hut Site

Matt had put a trip to visit the old Angle Knob hut site on the schedule which sounded interesting. He planned on getting to the site via Baldy and the Broken Axe Pinnacles which are both places I have never been to. The plan also included staying at McGregor biv which I had stopped off … Read more

Cone to Alpha Huts (via Neill, Winchcombe and Hector)

We headed into Cone Hut from the Waiohine roadend on Friday night (after getting Chinese takeaways in Greytown – recommended!), and got to Cone at 9.45 that night. Cone is a great little hut and is renowned in arachnologist circles for having some of the hugest spiders in the Tararuas. We crashed almost as soon … Read more

Mitre Flats Navigation (AKA not getting to Mitre Flats but not getting lost)

I signed up for this tramp in order to brush-up on my navigational skills and also to travel over Pinnacle Ridge between the Atiwhakatu valley and Barton track. However, soon after signing-up I found myself organising and leading this trip with the expectation that I would be instructing on navigation! On the Friday evening we … Read more

Shingle Slip Knob Plane Wreck

When I saw that a tramp to the plane wreck at Shingle Slip Knob was planned I was keen and quickly signed up. On my first climb of Mt Holdsworth when I was 12 years old we spotted the wreck in the far distance. Something about the wreck captured my imagination and it had been … Read more

Tararua Day Trip – Phillips Stream

Phillips Stream

Canyoning is heaps of fun. Don’t believe me? Well read Megan’s newsletter story of No 1 Canyon. Or take a look at our video of Phillips Stream. There is a small group within the club that is regularly canyoning – and now summer is here it’s time for lots more trips. So seven of us … Read more