This article will be published in Tararua Tramper, July 2025
Weir did we go?
Wainuiomata and Ōrongorongo water catchments
Saturday 10 May
Since the late nineteenth century, Wellington has relied on the Wainuiomata and Ōrongorongo Rivers to supply potable water. To protect these valuable catchments, access is restricted.
Early Saturday morning, ten of us waited with baited breath as I rang the gate’s number. ‘Unregistered number, you do not have access’, an unfriendly robot replied. Dave tried with his phone and got the same message. Contingency plans were being made as, on its own accord, the gate stealthily opened. The second, less technological, gate merely required a combination – we were in.
One of the best formed and maintained walking tracks in the Wellington region isn’t on any topo map. The pack track leading from George Creek in the Wainuiomata River catchment and over point 800 into the Ōrongorongo catchment, is wide, expertly benched, and clear of windfall and debris. It passes through virgin bush alive with birdsong. It was cut in the 1920s to access the head of the Ōrongorongo valley so materials for the water supply project could be brought in by horseback.
It was a calm, sunny post-southerly cracker of a day, and the team were in good spirits. Approaching the top of the pack track David used a previous trace to lead us off track directly up until we intersected with the East Whakanui track – a neat piece of navigation. We followed the East Whakanui for a few minutes before veering off down the spur which runs roughly parallel to Telephone Creek.
Once down in the Ōrongorongo there was much concrete infrastructure to admire – bridges, tunnels, walkways and the weir. Discombobulating in the midst of seeming wilderness. We ate lunch on the sunny meadow downstream from the weir. After poking our noses into Big and Little Huia Creeks we made our way back to the pack track, and followed its whole length back into George Creek and the water treatment plant.
Sarah White (scribe) and Paul McCredie (co-leaders), Kobus Boshoff, Reuben Haslip, Marie Henderson, Franz Hubmann, David McNabb, Graham Morley, Tim Stone, Mike Voets.