This article was first published in the Tararua Tramper Volume 94, no 8, September 2022
Turere cliffs SF
3 August 2022
The cliffs rise 30 m above the stream bed. True cliffs too, not some residual slip face but, at the top, vertical, bare stone. Lower down, a near-vertical incline with some greenery and a couple of ledges; the foolhardy and the accomplished climber alike might be tempted to try an ascent.
Although I had doubtless passed under these cliffs on earlier trips it wasn’t until March this year that I first noticed them1 and realised a return trip equipped with an altimeter was needed.
Starting from Sunny Grove, we turned up Skerrets Creek at the bridge, thereby avoiding a familiar highway. Easy travel both up the creek and, apart from a few metres of kiekie at its base, up a spur leading to the Boys’ Brigade Track. Then along tracks to a spur leading down to Turere Stream. We followed a trapping line that, at its conclusion, transformed into a very well-trodden pad taking us right down to the valley floor. Despite all the rain of recent times, Turere Stream was low and afforded good travel 500 m downstream to the cliffs.
A barometric altimeter read 370 m at the cliff’s base and, after we struggled up an old slip face, 401 m at the top. 30 m in round numbers. That’s a rise through about 1.5 contour line spaces; topo50 map BQ32 gives no hint of this2.
Return to the McKerrow Track was via the spur off Bump 680, following a very good animal trail that persisted to about the 600 m contour. (There are no traps on this spur.) Then on to the Boys’ Brigade Track and, finally, off track down a fine spur which delivered us to the Sunny Grove ‘highway’ some 400 m from the road end.
1 ‘Turere Delivers’, Tramper, Vol. 94, April 2022, pp. 17-18. 2 On the 1m contour map the site looks more cliff-like but only about 22m high. Thanks to Robin Chesterfield for explaining how to obtain 1m contour data.
- Party members
- Bill Allcock, Karen Baker, Colin Cook (leader and scribe), Janette Roberts, Mike Wespel-Rose, Lynne White.