Thursday 12 March 2020

Leader: Owen Cox

There were five of us on this easy mid-week trip. We met with Tony at Pukerua Bay railway station after travelling down in the train. We walked across Pukerua Bay to the Raroa Place reserve. Here we picked up the track through the forest reserve to the top of the cliffs above Marble Arch.

There are some nice views from the top of the cliffs and morning light showed these at their best. We then headed west along the crest of the cliffs for a kilometre or so. Here we decided to head south down a gulley to creek just south of Wairaka Point. This had some ongaonga (stinging nettle) in it so it is not the best route. Continuing along the cliff tops is easy and avoids the nettle.

Once we cleared the ongaonga it was only short distance to the cliffs above the western coast. We had a snack here.

The route down to the coast follows the spur and drops into the small stream just below a waterfall. Can be a scramble here but nothing too tricky. This leads to the flat near the site of the bach that Nobby Clark lived in until the early 1960s. We then walked back around the coast to Pukerua Bay. The tide was in so passed up on climbing Wai Rock as we weren’t interested in wet feet. Once we reached Pukerua Bay we headed up the track to Rawhiti Road and back to the station.

In all about three hours of walking and a very pleasant way to spend part of a day.

Those on the trip were:

Owen Cox, Tony Quayle, Moshe Rapaport, Darrel Sutherland, Kate Livingston

Currently there is no photo album for this trip.