Thursday 18 July 2019

Leader: Tony Quayle

On some of our regular trips up Wainui, a few of us had noted what looked like a trodden route that joined the main track just below the summit scrub and suggested a possible route from Hydro Valley (upper Whakatikei). After Ian Bade mentioned meeting a tramper on Hydro Road who had just come down that way, I figured it was time to check it out. On a geocaching foray with Sue, we investigated a couple of possible leads heading that way but didn’t find anything very promising, so scheduled a mid-week day trip to properly explore the route.

We took our usual route (with landowner permission) past The Rocks and around to the saddle at the foot of Wainui, then headed south along the forestry road on the western side of the valley. At the point where this forks, with the main route turning east to cross the stream towards Hydro Road, there’s an open area that’s a logical place for the route to start. After climbing a clay bank that’s obviously a favoured trail bike playground we entered the pines and headed towards Wainui.

The first landmark along the route is a curious sort of viewing platform, worth a pause to speculate on its purpose.

Climbing off towards the west, we were soon out of the pines and into native bush and scrub, with a reasonable ground trail much of the way up the spur and no bush bashing to speak of. We reached the summit in about the same time the usual route takes.

After lunch at the trig we headed down the newly marked and cut standard route and were back at the cars after around 6 ½ hrs away.

This is a great round trip and likely to become a regular fixture on our programme.

Those on the trip were:

Brandon Holman, Owen Cox, Patrick Liss, Tony Quayle