Windy Tops

Tag: independent trip

Daywalk: Honeycomb Rock, Wairarapa

I intuitively associate strong wind with exposed places at high altitude, but it doesn’t always work that way. Apparently Glenburn Station, up the south-east coast of the North Island from Honeycomb Rock, is one of those places that can be very exposed. I shouldn’t have been too surprised given that Castlepoint isn’t much further up the coast. This was my bail-out at my own pace walk on flat ground, as a compromise to keep me sane when my dodgy knee caused me to cancel a scurried weekend attempt at Neill Winchcombe in the Tararuas with Craig. Hopefully at a later time, though.

It’s a windy coastline.

It turns out I was the only person walking the walk to Honeycomb Rock last Sunday. A family group of about four began a few minutes before me, but turned around within the first ten minutes. I don’t blame them but, having driven for a couple of hours to get there, I wasn’t about to do the same. I’d heard that Honeycomb Rock would be an interesting place to visit, but didn’t really know what to expect. Information about the walk is fairly scarce. This was combined with my general lack of research before I left. Being ill informed as I was, I ran into a few issues. The first was that aside form the starting point (Glenburn Station), I didn’t really know where to start. The second was that aside from somewhere around the coast, I didn’t really know where to go. The third was that aside from something about fancy rocks and a seal colony, I didn’t really know what to expect. I didn’t help that I’d for some reason been thinking it was “Honeycomb Rocks” instead of “Honeycomb Rock”, but I guess now I know better.

Date: 13th December, 2009
Location: Glenburn Station, Wairarapa Coast.
Route: Walk to Honeycomb Rock and back, wherever that is.
[Photos]
[map:https://93a12629bf06.ngrok-free.app/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/20091213-honeycomb-walk-wairarapa.gpx%5D

This post is a trip report. You can find other trip reports about other places linked from the Trip Reports Page, or by browsing the Trip Reports Category.

The walk is administered by the New Zealand Department of Conservation in the Wairarapa region, but is entirely on the privately owned Glenburn Station (sheep and cattle farming). It’s officially closed when Glenburn Station is in baby-raising mode (ie. lambing season), but even the DOC signs only say that this is “usually” about September and October (despite the website info being specific about this), so if it’s near this time and you have any doubt you should probably contact an office in the Wairarapa to find out before going all the way out there. It’s not a major enough walk for much information to be available through DOC’s passive resources beyond a sparsely clad pamphlet downloadable from the website, and as a coastal walk it’s probably targeted mostly at people who live in relatively nearby places such as Carterton or Masterton. It’s not often that I go out for a daywalk and spend two thirds of the time driving, but I wanted to see what it was.
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19 December, 2009
Trip: Exploring the Orongorongo Valley

The Orongorongo Valley is a nearby place that I’ve overlooked quite a lot. In once sense it’s too close, which isn’t a fair way to judge somewhere. It’s also relatively popular, with roughly 100 locked private huts and batches dotted along the Orongorongo river. When I’ve visited in the past, I’ve not really felt as if I’ve been far away from anything at all. I spent last weekend there on my own, however, and enjoyed it.

The Orongorongo Valley.

I was actually supposed to be going with some others into the Tararuas, but that arrangement fell apart a day or two before, and I doubt I’d have been able to go along with it anyway since I’ve been having some knee problems since arriving back in the country. I really didn’t want to do nothing, though, and made a last minute plan to walk into the Orongorongas from Catchpool Valley, stopping to camp at whatever point my knee decided it could go no further. This plan eventually led me to an ad-hoc campsite next to a river underneath Papatahi where I stayed for a night, before walking out roughly the way I’d come on the following morning.

Dates: 5th – 6th December, 2009
Location: Rimutaka Forest Park, Catchpool Valley road-end.
People: Just me.
Huts visited: Baine Iti Hut (0 nights), Shamrock Hut (0 nights), Haurangi Hut (0 nights), and a heap of private lodges.
Route: Catchpool Valley to the Orongorongo River, up the river to North Boulder Creek, camp in the creek below Papatahi, then back the same way.
[Photos]
[map:https://93a12629bf06.ngrok-free.app/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/20091206-exploring-the-orongorongo.gpx%5D

This post is a trip report. You can find other trip reports about other places linked from the Trip Reports Page, or by browsing the Trip Reports Category.

The end of Turere Stream as it
reaches the Orongorongo River.

And thus it was that after a late start, I arrived at the Catchpool Valley car-park at about midday. I’ve been here before, but my first impression on the day of this entrance to the Rimutaka Range was that it might not have been a good idea with a dodgy knee. It’s probably by far the most popular entrance to the range, and the Orongorongo Track, which is the main route to the Orongorongo River, is hard enough on the legs that it might as well be cemented. A little over an hour later, though, I reached the main Orongorongo River, and walking on the sandy river rocks made things easier on my problem knee.
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8 December, 2009
Daywalk: Wellington to Whitby via Belmont Regional Park

Yesterday I went for a walk, a week after returning home, to try and get back into the swing of things. It first took me to Ngauranga (I needed to buy something from LV Martin), but then I just kept on walking. It turned into quite a nice day, although by the end I had a couple of blisters on the soles of my feet, and ache in a few places. I think this is symptomatic of me having been a few weeks without much exercise, but hopefully I’m on the way to loosening up.

I found a new way into Belmont Regional Park that I’d previously not known about, heading up through Granada North where there’s a new sub-division going in, then just following the roads until they fade away. In hindsight I think I might have accidentally crossed about 50 metres of private land (hopefully no more), which I realised upon emerging at the end of someone’s driveway, so I’m not 100% sure if there’s a complete public access corridor going through there.

[map:https://93a12629bf06.ngrok-free.app/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/20091122-wellington-to-whitby-via-belmont.gpx%5D
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23 November, 2009
Daywalk: Makara Peak and Skyline Walkway

Wacky Mountain Bikies have their
own sense of humour.

I’ve already written about the Skyline Walkway at least a couple of times [1, 2], so I’ll focus more on the parts around Makara Peak.

Date: 15th August, 2009
Location: Makara Peak and Skyline Walkway, Wellington.
Route: Walk up to Makara Peak from South Karori Road, down via Zac’s Track, then along the Skyline Walkway to Mt Kaukau, and Johnsonville via Old Coach Road. (Also see the map at the end of this post.)
[Photos]
[map:https://93a12629bf06.ngrok-free.app/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/20090815-makara-peak-and-skyline-walkway.gpx%5D

This post is a trip report. You can find other trip reports about other places linked from the Trip Reports Page, or by browsing the Trip Reports Category.

Makara Peak is a dedicated Mountain Bike park, choca-full of mountain bike tracks that are maintained by the community. This is the second time I’ve been there. The first time (before I was really writing things down), I wandered into a few areas that caused me to be really worried that a speedy bicycle pilot would come careening around a blind corner and run me over. It didn’t feel quite the same this time, though, possibly because I had a better idea of wanting to stay to the wider tracks, and perhaps because there seemed to be less people around.
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16 August, 2009
Daywalk: Rimutaka Rail Trail (Wellington side)

It seems I’ve actually only been out tramping five times this year, and three of those times have been in nearly the same place (near Holdsworth and Mitre Flats). I find this depressing in a way, but I guess it’s what happens when so much else has been going on and busying up my life. It has meant I’ve spent more time getting out on daywalks to visit some of the places closer to Wellington, and the most recent of these was to walk up the Rimutaka Rail Trail.

A generic collection of river rocks which was
not especially characteristic to this walk.

The Rimutaka Rail Trail is one of those things I hear a lot about, but until now I’ve never made the time to go and check it out, mostly thanks to being busy with other things. The entire trail crosses from Upper Hutt to Featherston, crossing the gap between the Tararua and Rimutaka Ranges (or “the range” if you’re the sort of person who thinks of them as the same one). Historically, it’s the route that the railway line followed to connect Wellington with the Wairarapa, and special “Fell” locomotives, designed with low gear ratios and a centre grip track, were built specifically to slowly haul trains over the very steep (for a train) 1/15 gradient climb over the range. Building this long, snakey route over the range, including three tunnels, was a huge task for a lot of people in the latter part of the 19th century, but economically it was very important. The line was decommissoined and the specialised Fell Locomotives retired in 1955, at the opening of New Zealand’s longest railway tunnel of the day (8.8 km) which passes directly underneath. The Rimutaka Rail Trail was re-opened as a walking and mountain biking track a few years ago, and in that time it’s become very popular.

Date: 9th August, 2009
Location: Pakuratahi Forest, near Upper Hutt.
Route: Walk up to the Rimutaka Rail Trail Summit from Upper Hutt, then back again. (Also see the map at the end of this post.)
[Photos]
[map:https://93a12629bf06.ngrok-free.app/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/20090809-rimutaka-rail-trail.gpx%5D

This post is a trip report. You can find other trip reports about other places linked from the Trip Reports Page, or by browsing the Trip Reports Category.

It’s common for people to visit the summit from either side, then walk back the way they came, although sometimes organised people will walk all the way across, and ambitious people might walk all the way over and all the way back in a long day.

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10 August, 2009
Daywalk: Belmont Trig via Bridleway and Stratton Street

Belmont Regional Park is an awesome place for getting out for a walk in Wellington. It’s central (literally), very accessible on most sides from public transport, and from Belmont Trig it’s possible to see how a large number of pockets of the Wellington Region all fit together. Wellington’s roads are laid out to divide the Porirua side of the region from the Hutt side in a way that causes many people to assume that they’re a long way apart. For myself, it really wasn’t until I walked through Belmont Regional Park that I really appreciated just how close the Hutt Valley is to Porirua. Being able to see them both from a central point and then be down on either side in the time of an hour or so is a really cool thing.

From Cannons’ Head down to Stratton Street.

I had some free time during rather nice weather on Sunday, and decided to drive out to Petone and spend it doing exactly this. With the opportunity, I also decided to do some red lining and take a look around a few areas of Belmont Regional Park where I haven’t yet been.

Date: 19th July, 2009
Location: Belmont Regional Park, from Cornish Street.
Route: A clockwise loop up to Belmont Trig via Bridleway, over to Cannons’ Head, down to Stratton Street and back to Cornish Street via Korokoro Dam.
[Photos]

This post is a trip report. You can find other trip reports about other places linked from the Trip Reports Page, or by browsing the Trip Reports Category.

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23 July, 2009
Daywalk: Makara Beach Loop

With a need to find a reasonably easy place to walk in my new shoes, I thought I might go for a wander around the Makara Beach loop. The last time I tried to do this I discovered I was a week too late, and the farm-land section of the loop had been closed for lambing (which happens between 1st August and 31st October). So thanks to transport difficulties I’ve had in the past, this was the first time I’d actually walked the ridge part of the loop.

The Makara turbines of Project West Wind.

It’s hard to talk about the Makara Beach Loop these days without talking about Project West Wind — the initiative of Meridian Energy to build a giant wind farm on Wellington’s south coast. It took years to get through the consent process, and my most vivid memory of this was one of the few meetings I attended of the Tararua Tramping Club back in 2007. The meeting involved a representative of Meridian who described the wind farm proposal with a slide-show decorated by a large photo of a cute and happy dog basking in the wind, many noisy people whom I was later informed were not regular attendees of TTC meetings, and a lot of angry heckling.

Date: 14th June, 2009
Location: Makara Loop Walk, from Makara Beach.
Route: Just doing the loop clockwise starting from the beach.
[Photos and Videos]

This post is a trip report. You can find other trip reports about other places linked from the Trip Reports Page, or by browsing the Trip Reports Category.

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14 June, 2009
Trip: Holdsworth Lodge to Mitre Flats and back

I had a free weekend and I realised that I hadn’t been to the Tararuas for about six months! Don’t ask me how this happened because it’s my favourite mountain range. Since I had the time, I made up my mind to get back and visit them again. The weather forecast was changing every hour leading up to my leaving home on Saturday morning, which was probably because the Met service forecasters weren’t very certain about exactly where a particular system was going to hit. It looked as if it might get very rainy, but I guess you can’t really beat the Tararuas when it’s raining. They’re fantastic.

Between Atiwhakatu Hut
and Mitre Flats.

Dates: 2nd – 3rd May, 2009
Location: Tararua Forest Park, Holdsworth road-end.
People: Just me.
Huts visited: Holdsworth Lodge (0 nights), Atiwhakatu Hut (0 nights), Mitre Flats Hut (1 night).
Route: Start at Holdsworth Lodge, walk straight to Mitre Flats (via the track), then walk back.
[Photos]

This post is a trip report. You can find other trip reports about other places linked from the Trip Reports Page, or by browsing the Trip Reports Category.

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6 May, 2009
Daywalk: Point Dorset and Wellington’s Eastern Walkway

Waves breaking north of Point Dorset.

I haven’t been tramping for over 2 months thanks to some logistics, and it feels like ages. I hoping to get away to the Ruahines next weekend, and that’ll be nice. Meanwhile however, I had reason to drop Stacey off at Seatoun near Wellington’s south coast and next to the harbour entrance, and I thought that I might go for a walk around there rather than heading straight home. It was really only a 2 hour walk, but I’ll label it here as a daywalk because it could consume a day for someone who wanted it to do so.

Seatoun is a Wellington suburb out past the airport. It lies on the eastern edge of the peninsula jutting into Wellington Harbour. It’s very accessible to the coast, and there are a few walking tracks nearby which provide a really good experience of interaction with the sea both from beach-level and from the hills above, especially during a strong southerly where the wind comes directly over the sea from Antarctica and thrashes the coast. There was something of a southerly today but not a strong one and it was rather pleasant wind mixed with the sunshine and high cloud. My basic plan was to go for a wander around Point Dorset somehow, then come back along the coast to Tarakena Bay near the Wahine Memorial, and back to where I started (Seatoun) via what Wellington’s city council calls the Eastern Walkway.

Date: 14th March, 2009
Location: Wellington’s south coast.
People: Just me.
Route: Looping clockwise around Point Dorset starting from the Pass of Branda, then looping clockwise around the coast and up over the Eastern Walkway.
[Photos and Videos]

This post is a trip report. You can find other trip reports about other places linked from the Trip Reports Page, or by browsing the Trip Reports Category.

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15 March, 2009
Daywalk: Pencarrow Head and Lake Kohangapiripiri

One of the places in the Wellington region that I’ve never properly visited, which I’m almost embarrassed to admit, is the area around Pencarrow Head within East Harbour Regional Park. Though it used to be remote, it’s now very accessible from Wellington, just down the road from Eastbourne on the eastern side of Wellington Harbour. It’s still very unpopulated though, despite the accessibility.

Lake Kohangapiripiri.

I arrived back in New Zealand from the USA at 8am Tuesday morning and it was an awesome day for blue sky and sunshine. As I’d already decided not to go to work, I thought I might try and go out for a walk instead rather than just sit around at home and try to sleep off any possible jet-lag. I’m very glad I did, because I think I needed the recovery time after being trapped in a concrete jungle for so long. I like coming home.

I think it’d be possible to catch a bus to Eastbourne and do the entire thing with public transport, but I drove there on this occasion. The legal part of the road ends a few hundred metres south of Point Arthur, at a gate called Burdans Gate. From here it’s necessary to get permission from the Hutt City Council to drive any further, but it makes more sense just to park a car and start walking.

Date: 17th February, 2009
Location: East Harbour Regional Park, Wellington.
People: Just me.
Route: Along the coast to the Pencarrow Lighthouse, around Lake Kohangapiripiri, and back the same way along the coast.
[Photos]

This post is a trip report. You can find other trip reports about other places linked from the Trip Reports Page, or by browsing the Trip Reports Category.

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19 February, 2009