This text was read by OCR from a scanned newsletter and has not been proofread yet, so expect odd characters and mistakes.
T= day was made for tramping — calm, brilliantly sunny, no wind and a good forecast. Our meeting place was Ollie’s bach in Bulls Run Road off the western end of Moonshine Road. On board we had: Don O’Brien, trip leader, his son Ben, Dot & Dave Catchpole, Judy & John Armstrong, Beth & Kevin Griffiths, Lorraine Nielsen, Barry Cook, Heather Jones, Ron Fayle, a visitor from Forest & Bird named Helen, Ollie Stempa and Lloyd Wilkin. Ollie and her husband Brian had welcomed the party with hot drinks and food before .we started tramping at 10.15 am.
We soon located Deadwood Road and headed up our first hill through radiata forest in a south-easterly direction and climbed about 100m before descending to a wooden road bridge spanning the only river that we would cross on this tramp. It surely must be the least known and the least visited river in the greater Wellington area and its name is Whakatikei. It rises on the eastern slopes of Mt Wainui near Paekakariki, and is good tramping upstream of the Dopers Creek junction. Others tell me that downstream of that junction it is basically gorge travel and rather slow with lots of twists and bends in the river’s course through steep hillsides until it empties into the Hutt River out of sight from River Road but about opposite the far end__ of Whakatikei Street, Upper Hutt. From the bridge we looked down the Whakatikei towards the Duckpond which was out of sight but only 400m distant with at least one deep pool between us and the pond. Off we went over the bridge and up a good road on the other side to a campsite where we could
look across a nearby creek to an airstrip which was on our route. After the morning cuppa stop, we continued upwards towards the airstrip and there was a variety of interesting objects to pause and look at such as abandoned machinery, tractors, bulldozers, NZR rolling stock and the like. Tucked away in the bush were about half a dozen houses at different locations with couples permanently in residence and evidenced by driveways with signposts such as Fred and Maggie’s place. We reserved an inspection of the airstrip for the return journey later that day and pressed on past another campsite to the top of the hill at about 420m high. At this point we climbed out of the Whakatikei’s catchment and into the catchment of the Akatarawa River West in which the Woolshed is located.
The route up had been mostly eastwards through native forest with the bright sunshine making it really sparkle in every shade of green. We continued east for 1 km along the top before we turned to the north and started a gradual descent which would take us down to the Woolshed, located at grid reference P26/832127. On the Paraparaumu Topo sheet R26 edition 2, it is the tiny square dot shown on the map at that location. We stopped for lunch at a junction on.top of the-spur-to-the-east-of the— Woolshed before calling in for a quick look at it after lunch. This spur is presently another radiata forest but the mere presence of a woolshed in the creek below indicates its probable history as farmland before the forest was planted. Likewise the ridge to the west of the Woolshed up which we climbed after our inspection. It is
Lloyd Wilkin presently planted in tall Australian gum trees. The gum trees gave way to native forest as the road reached the ridgetop and turned towards the south sidling the highest peak in the immediate area. Twenty minutes later we came to a beaconed trig station which the altimeter that we carried showed to be 470m and shown on the map at 468m but not shown as a trig station. Working our way a little further along the ridgetop towards the south we arrived at a lookout area and through a narrow gap in the surrounding bush I could see the gas tanks at Seaview with the deep blue of Port Nicholson beyond. Near the lookout, we linked up with our path prior to lunch and dropped down to the airstrip for a look and afternoon coffee at a nearby campsite. We retraced our route back to the road bridge and just across the other side and up a bit, a bush track for trampers, not vehicles, climbs into the bush over the top of river cliffs and in a southerly direction to drop down steeply at the Duckpond. This bush track avoids nearby private property for a house has been built on a perch overlooking the Duckpond with a noisy dog giving passers-by ahard time. Next time I must pack some dog crackers in a side pocket, remembering not to pass them around.at.coffee.
We arrived at Ollie’s bach with daylight to spare. Ollie and Brian sent us on our way with more coffee and they were thanked by the party for their hospitality. Thanks also to Don for an ably led trip and to other trampers for producing such an enjoyable day out in them thar hills. cy