14 June, 2026
Ten of us drove to the road end in behind Norsewood where Murry was waiting for us. I knew I’d been up this track before, but not very far, I must have been moving the truck or something. Anyway, as the eleven of us set off I started recognising bits of it.
After a short bit of farmland we entered regenerating bush and soon got a view out over the ranges to the south and the farmland to the east. At the start it’s an old formed road and pretty easy going, after a while we came to a patch of larger kamahi trees that I remembered. We kept on climbing for a bit over an hour, at which point we sat down and had some smoko.
It was partly cloudy with a cold wind and while at times we could see it raining, we never actually got wet. After smoko we separated out, leaving Christine, Glenda and me at the back, though to be fair the faster party didn’t go all that much further in the end. We ambled up onto a ridge through a mosaic of regenerating bush that has obviously seen a multitude of fires and failed farming attempts over the years. As we went, the track got worse the bush got better (very mossy and green) with the odd bigger tree and patches of beech, there were also quite a few really big dead trees on the ground. After a while the weather got quite a lot colder and a bit damper and the track started heading downhill, so we had lunch and started back with the fast party catching us up an hour or so later. A very pleasant and picturesque trip.
Party: Jude Hy, Christine L, Peter Mc, Christine B, Steve B, Selina C, Murry A, Judith M, Connie F, Glenda H, Peter B