This text was read by OCR from a scanned newsletter and has not been proofread yet, so expect odd characters and mistakes.
n Sunday 5th March 1998, trip leader Heather Jones could have been excused for thinking that -she was skippering a-yacht. with a crew of 17, for the Sunday trip schedule had set her a triangular course to Mt McKerrow (706m) and back. Leg 1 was 4 km long, along the Orongorongo Track to the Mt McKerrow turnoff, which took us just over an hour. Heather counted heads, blinked, counted again and then said, “Cripes, we’re one short”. We worked out who it was and which end of the tramp he was at when last seen. Answer, the front end. Our strategy for finding the man overboard was being considered when low and behold, he came into sight heading for us at high speed from the front. He had sailed past the turnoff, hit the river, and returned at high speed to see why no one was tailing him
We did not further delay the tackling of Leg 2 which was an uphill tack generally to the north and the McKerrow summit. It was 3 km in length. After 15 minutes, Heather dropped anchor at a spot where our spur gave us a view across the lower reaches of the
opposite us and about 1 km distant. It starts at the Turere Bridge, runs generally north for 8 or 9 km and peters out at the Wainui River. The Whakanui track crosses it amidships. As I sat at the anchorage taking in the Turere scene, I thought in silence of those two days of 1993 when a 7-yearold child was lost for about 27 hours in the scene below us. Luckily it had a happy ending. I also thought of the “Wild Turere” which used to be sung with merriment on the back of Club transport back in the 1950s.
The morning coffee break over, Heather weighed anchor and set off for the top buoy of Leg 2 with her full crew and the climb continued over a knoll of 417m followed by a 30m drop before the climb resumed. Down on out left was the Catchpool Stream but that was soon to change when, at 500m, the leading spur on the other side of that stream joined our spur and we left the Catchpool Stream in our wake. From then on our constant companion on our left hand would be the McKerrow Stream which has its source high up on the mountain that we were climbing. At 500m the track was much less steep and we made quick forward progress but without much gain in height. Looking ahead one could see the last steep bit before the twin summits of McKerrow. completed, Heather dropped anchor at the top track junction where the long descent of 5.6 km (Leg 3 of the yacht race) would commence. I held my breath. Would our leader turn right and
Lloyd Wilkin visit the pipe or would she turn left and save time? She turned left which meant that we said goodbye to the Turere Stream and hello to Grace Stream down on our right-hand side. We stuck to the ridge-top, for we were descending Clay Ridge, and Heather, who had sailed this course before, selected a site with a wonderful view for lunch. The panorama stretched from Wellington’s south coast to Kapiti Island, and included Wellington and its port, the Hutt Valley, Wainuiomata and the Coast Road in the foreground. A cold norwester had most of us reaching for our parkas or jerseys, although the sun was shining.
Lunch over, Heather set sail for the Catchpool down an easy track through a mixture of bush, scrub and gorse, with a further refreshment stop on the way because of the length of this last leg. At the Clay Ridge saddle and track junction, Heather elected to return via the Grace Stream route to the Catchpool where everyone thanked their leader for a most enjoyable day. The crew: Trip leader Heather Jones, Dot & Dave Catchpole, Bal i Jan & Brian Goodwin, Lorraine Nielsen, Don O’Brien, John & Michael O’Connell, Georgie Sanderson, tan Scott, Ollie Stempa, a visitor named Barbara, and Lloyd Wilkin (scribe).
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