This article was published in Tararua Tramper October 2025
It’s all downhill from here, baby! Remutaka summit to Bucks Road
M – Saturday 30 August What could be easier than starting at the Remutaka summit and descending gently to Bucks Road, outside of Featherston? Well, that’s how I advertised this one and the promotion worked – thirteen folk signed up. In reality the walk started with a savage 300 m uphill grunt. We car shuttlers were trying to chase down the rest of the crew who had a 45-minute start, so there was lots of heavy breathing.
Mike meanwhile was ably leading our happy crew. The forecast drizzle hadn’t eventuated, the sun shone, and we were in the main sheltered from the gusty northerly.
The tracks had been recently cleared by GWBN, and we travelled through varied terrain. Pretty beech forest, a section of fast four-wheel-drive road, and some open sections of sub alpine scrub featuring gorgeous rust-coloured dracophyllum.
A view of southern Wairarapa, down into the Tauwharenīkau and over the Tararua Range was spread before us.
A great seven-hour trip … and I didn’t get one consumer complaint about the false advertising! (SW)
Sarah White (leader), Christine Ben-Tovim, Theresa Davies, Paul McCredie, Jake McLaren, Sarah McLaren, Jane-Pyar Mauntner, Jo Newman, Karen Serjeantson, Tim Stone, Peter Tunnicliff, Karen Vaughan, Mike Voets