Sunday 14 June 2026

Leader: Geoff Scrase

We began our ascent of four degree Te Whiti Riser, on the eastern hills of Lower Hutt at 0905h. My own objective was to see if the ridge track that Sigi and I used many years ago from Blue Mountain Rd (just off Whiteman's Valley Rd, Upper Hutt) to the Wainuiomata Hill road, a distance of approximately 13 km, still existed.

At the Te Whiti Riser summit, we had good views over the valley, the harbour and Wellington. We carried on beyond the Te Whiti Riser summit to the transmission tower where we were in low cloud which almost completely eliminated views of the valley and Wellington. We could find no evidence of the old track. (It is no longer listed as a walking track in any of the websites I had researched). Kerren returned alone to the start as she had to rendezvous at the airport. The rest of us returned the same way to the start. The approximately 14 km round trip took about 3 hours.

With time at our disposal, we decided to lunch at Eastbourne's Pavilion café. The sun was shining brightly now and it was warm. After lunch Kate and Andrew departed to Kapiti for other commitments.

Five of us were left and we drove to Kowhai St to start the walk over the hill to Butterfly Creek. This is always a lovely walk in rich beech forest with birds singing. We returned to the start by the same outward track, arriving back at Maryann's car at about 1600h. Those who had not walked these tracks appreciated the new experience. In total, we covered approximately 19.5 km.

Those on the trip were:

Geoff Scrase, Kate Livingston, Kerren Hedlund, Maryann Bugg, Petr Kure, Sigi Scrase, Andrew and Stuart

Currently there is no photo album for this trip.