A bee sting and a bad night’s sleep saw our numbers drop from 9 to 7 on this overcast Sunday morning so with Murry driving the truck we headed off along the Napier Taupo Road. We arrived at Takarere Road (which is just a few kilometers east of Tarawera), drove along it for a few kms and found a suitable parking spot not far from the DOC sign for the Stoney Creek Conservation Area.

After a false start we found a way down into Stoney Creek, which had a few log jams and was quite deep in places, and headed upstream in two groups .

• 

• 

• 

Once in the Ohane Stream the going was much faster, the sun started coming out, the robins and tui were singing and all was dandy except for the odd bit of Onga Onga that reached out and grabbed a few of our members.  The forward party went up past the hot spring which it was quite smelly and obvious.  They had also come across a few hunters in the area and a  puddle of fresh blood  beside the stream showed that at least one of them was successful.

After an unsuccessful look for the spring the second party retreated back a bit and had lunch in a sunny spot before continuing downstream.  Opposite the junction of the two streams they found a good hunters’ track that took them up out of the valley to the road which they followed back to the truck.  The forward party arrived just under an hour later and once all were organised we did a quick detour to the Tarawera Cafe for an ice-cream before returning home.

Party: Murry A, Anne D, Derek B, Daniel H, Robyn P, Dale B, Glenda H