This article was first published in the Tararua Tramper Volume 87, no 11, December 2015
Wainuiomata Golf Course to Stanley St EM
Wednesday 4 November 2015
Wainuiomata Golf Club (Riskend) appreciated our asking for permission several days ahead and happily agreed for us to pass through at the quieter time of the morning.
The weather was cold, wet and windy; truly miserable. A map of the golf course showing which way the balls might be flying was superfluous, as the one car already outside the club rooms was almost certainly that belonging to the manager, and the only signs of life on the fairways were three goats and a pair of paradise shelducks. Across from the fairways, and in the bush near the creek we soon located the trapping line running beside the creek then up a spur on to East Ridge. Everyone kept noticing the many rotting possums hanging from the traps, seen all day.
There was little incentive to stop as we travelled north to bump 360, and then took the line just north and below the bump into the Gollans. At least it was sheltered in the valley and with only light rain a lunch stop was taken at the first of those delightful little flat areas in the beech forest. Moving again, and regardless of the small volume of water in the stream, some of us soon had at least one foot wet as familiar steep bank crossings were made until the top forks. We took the well-trodden line between the stream branches up to Rata Ridge Track where the wind was with us again, robbing what little heat had been generated by the climb. Relief prevailed as it was clear that the steep clay sections of the Stanley St Track have recently improved immensely with the growth of good bush through the gorse providing plentiful litter on the greasy surface. Very soon the roofs of houses were just below us and Oh how nice it was to climb into warm cars once they were all collected. MD Party as in photo below:
- Party members
- Michele Dickson (leader and scribe), David Campbell, Anne Bond, Alison Stephenson, Jan Nye, Trish Gardener-Smith, Pete Smith, Hadley Bond, Suzanne Sutton-Cummings