Matariki 24-26 June 2022

Leader: Paula Richardson

On the Friday morning of our new Matariki public holiday (yahoo - another long weekend for tramping trips!) we all set out for the Timber Trail, an 82km bike trail in the Pureora Forest.

We took our time heading up, stopping to regroup at Taihape, and getting to the Pureora Cabins late afternoon. We settled in, unloaded the bikes, had a walk amongst the totaras and watched the bats flying up in the tree tops.

Saturday morning was overcast but fine for biking. We had two of our cars shuttled back to Ongarue and Rex (injured) took our gear for the night and met us at Blackfern Lodge.

It was a great day's biking, a bit of a climb to start but not too bad and a bit of drizzle, also not too bad! Some of us climbed Mt Pureora (they say you get good views but we will have to go back again another day to see them) and side-tracked to Bog Inn Hut for lunch. We all left the trail at the 35km mark and detoured 6.7km to The Forge at Blackfern Lodge. We had a lovely warm, comfortable night at The Forge, singing and playing records (remember them?). The thought of the uphill back to the track the next day was not appealing so we accepted the offer of a ride up the hill and were happy to start the day at the top of the hill and bike back to join the trail.

The Sunday ride to Ongarue was just pure fun! We were back at the cars by about 3pm, retrieved the shuttled cars, loaded up and were on the road by 4pm, in time to get to the Rat Hole for dinner!

Special thanks to Rex for driving our gear.

Those on the trip were:

Paula Richardson, Graeme Hawthorne, Rex Benbrook, Anita Benbrook, June Skelton, Wayne Williams, Marian Cox, Owen Cox, Paul Michl, Rob Dey

Photos were not supplied for this report.