22-24 October 2022

Leader: Tony Quayle

Patrick and I both cut our tramping teeth on 'the Mokais’ back when we were teenage Venturer Scouts in the mid 1960s, which makes the area a nostalgic place for us to revisit. The most direct route to Miracle, the NZFS tent camp we’d adopted and adapted, was through Colenso Station but by the end of the 60s that route was no longer available to us.

Our newest member, Jacqui, had connections though that provided the privilege of returning to Colenso Station and using their hut on the Mt Colenso tops.

So it was then, that a group of us gathered on Saturday morning for a briefing by Jake, the station manager. Following Jake’s directions (and Roger’s instincts) we located the trail leading up through steep bush and scrub to the very nice hut, nestled in a sheltered spot with great views out across the Miracle area to Ruahine Corner and beyond. Jacqui, after a day’s work on the farm, joined us a little later, crossing paths with our outbound day-trippers Kylie and Roger near the bottom of the hill.

Sunday’s plan was a 20 km walk to Rongotea and back. With Jacqui’s local knowledge we picked up a neat little route that took us into the saddle between Mt Colenso and the Mokai Patea Range, then began the sometimes-boggy plod along the wide and easy tops to Rongotea. Here we spent a very pleasant lunch hour, in perfect weather, admiring the views deeper into the heart of the Ruahine Range. Our return route was via the Mt Colenso trig, where we met a small group of hunters who’d come up from the Kawhatau River.

We had hoped to check out a different route back to the station via Miracle Hut but with a fresh westerly and claggy conditions on Monday morning we opted to save that for another day and headed straight out the way we’d come in. Just forty-five minutes from the hut we reached the farmland, where Jacqui had parked her quad bike and after farewelling her there the rest of us wandered the last hour to the homestead. By midday we were out at Flat Hills café for lunch.

Those on the trip were:

Jacqui Marshall, Kylie Gilbert, Marcia Goode, Patrick Liss, Peter Davis, Rob Dey, Roger Gilbert, Sue Pate, Tony Quayle