This article was first published in the Tararua Tramper Volume 92, no 6, July 2020
Mt Maunganui from Maungatukutuku Valley - Easy/Medium
Sunday 17th May
We left one car at the 4WD centre and took the other car about a kilometre along the road to our starting point next to the Maungatukutuku Stream. We got our feet wet within the first minute, then found the path through a patch of tall tawa forest, crossed a tributary stream and started the climb up our chosen spur (see map – we need names for these routes – any ideas would be welcome).The track sticks to the spur all the way to the top, but some misguided purist has removed a lot of the markers. It’s a steady climb through beautiful bush. Jet, my labrador, led the party and explored off track while he waited for us. He always knew where we were, but we often had no idea where he was. But he never gets lost and is the ideal tramping dog, which is why I got him. The climb took two hours and we reached an open patch with superb views of the coast and Kapiti Island. A good place for lunch. Another half hour took us to the summit cairn at 708 m with great views to the Tararuas and Remutakas.
The track sticks to the spur all the way to the top, but some misguided purist has removed a lot of the markers. It’s a steady climb through beautiful bush. Jet, my labrador, led the party and explored off track while he waited for us. He always knew where we were, but we often had no idea where he was. But he never gets lost and is the ideal tramping dog, which is why I got him. The climb took two hours and we reached an open patch with superb views of the coast and Kapiti Island. A good place for lunch. Another half hour took us to the summit cairn at 708 m with great views to the Tararuas and Remutakas.
On the way down Michele showed us some bushes of Olearia lacunosa which has very distinctive narrow shiny leaves with recurved margins. It grows in the Tararuas and the West Coast down south. From our lunch spot we retraced our steps down the ridge for about 10 minutes to a track junction which is not well marked (the purist has been busy) but fairly obvious nevertheless. We turned to the left and descended a new ridge (name needed please!) which is quite steep in places but also has horizontal parts. The bush is quite beautiful here with some mature rimu and other podocarps. There are a couple of minor tops to cross before the track heads down a gully and eventually reaches the main stream which rises on Titi at 613 m. The track along the valley floor was quite wet and muddy. Five hours had elapsed when we reached the car at the 4WD centre. This might have been the first post-Covid-19 TTC trip – a good way to celebrate the escape from Alert Level 3.
- Party members
- Jeanette Martin, Jet, Ken Fraser (scribe), Dianne Lee, Michele Dickson