Friday This trip was all about the pizza. The plane wreck as well, but mostly the pizza. The pizza can be found at the secret Mill Bakery, just near Holdsworth Road End on Friday nights. We’d pre-ordered bases and had a table for 7pm. The traffic up the Hutt Valley on SH2 was crawling even … Read more
Trains, Tubes, Bikes and Boots ‘The 9.55 am train to Masterton has been delayed’ boomed the loudspeaker at Wellington Railway Station. Harry was unfazed. ‘This always happens to me’ he sighed. With a tight timeframe, we planned to train to Woodside, cycle to Bucks Road, tramp to the Tauwharenīkau River, tube the gorge and then … Read more
Due to poor weather, the plan for this trip ended up changing quite a bit. Originally, this was meant to be a Howletts Hut overnight trip in the Ruahine Ranges, but due to this walk having a decent portion of ridge travel and river crossings, we decided to do a loop walk a little closer … Read more
After a busy work day and a mission to find dinner at Paraparaumu, our tramp began at the Ōtaki Forks carpark. Being a hot summer weekend, there were plenty of cars parked. We zoomed along the road and over the slip track, making it to Parawai Lodge in about 45 minutes. It was very full … Read more
Our group met at Wellington Railway Station at 8am on Saturday morning. We drove to Shannon, and then into the hills behind the Mangahao Power Station. Opened in 1924, this was New Zealand’s first large hydro power station. The road is very windy and it seemed to take a very long time to reach the … Read more
Our group of four decided to take advantage of the long Wellington Anniversary weekend to get up onto the Main Range of the Tararuas. Starting (and finishing) at Holdsworth carpark, we’d gain the Main Range via Powell Hut, Mid Waiohine Hut and finally a climb up onto Aokaparangi, before traversing the Main Range to Maungahuka … Read more
Day 1 summary: Start: Kaitoke (Kiwi ranch road end) End: Alpha hut Distance: 18.3km Elevation gain: 1,600m Hours on the trail (including breaks): 8ish Hut occupancy: ~26 people and a dog Six trampers arrived for an early 7:00am departure from Platform 9 on a stunning Saturday morning. We shared the van with Tereza and Aimee … Read more
On the Saturday morning at 7.30 am six still half-asleep but excited punters met at the train station and set off in the van making our way slowly to the Poads Road end to start our walk. The beauty about leaving at an early time on a Saturday morning is that there is no traffic … Read more
Alpha Hut was our plan B, as we could not make the Southern Crossing happen due to the closing of the Otaki Forks road. We met on Saturday bright and early at 6:30am at the train station, before driving to Kaitoke carpark (Kiwi Road end). We left around 7:45am and started walking in the beautiful … Read more
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