Thursday 23 July 2020

Leader: Owen Cox

This was a day walk with six people on it.

We drove up Waitohu Valley Road from Otaki to a turning not far from the quarry site. We parked the cars just over the bridge and walked along route on the opposite side of the stream until just before the quarry. We then picked up the old logging road up the valley. The first couple of kilometres were easy going but once we passed the Mt Thompson track the going got pretty muddy for two kilometres. We also had a few stream crossings.

We had a short stop after the last stream crossing before climbing up the spur to Mick on old logging tracks. There is the odd bit of plastic tape but no continuous track marking. The logging tracks climb about 250m up the spur. After that there is an old blazed trail that leads to the top. We had lunch at about the 650m contour before climbing up to the old bomber crash. The crash is about 50 to 70 meters below the summit.

The bomber was a Lockheed Ventura bomber (a two engined bomber used in the Pacific in the war). This flight was a meteorological flight in February 1946. It lifted off, in misty weather, heading to Ohakea and hit the first ridge in the Tararuas, killing the four crew members. There is more detail if you goto Lockheed Ventura - Otaki February 1946.

The crash site, or area as the wreckage covers quite an area, is just south of the spur. There a few small bits of aluminium wreckage that someone has placed by the track and you just sidle south to find the crash site. We checked out some of the plane. Then it was back down to the cars.

Those on the trip were:

Owen Cox, Bryan Wild, Brandon Holman, Sandra Rowland, Kate Livingstone, Moshe Rapaport

Currently there is no photo album for this trip.