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Te rōpū hikoi o te pae maunga o Tararua   -   Celebrating 100 years of tramping

Trip Reports 2022-08-03-Turere Stream

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Turere1.jpg: 972x1021, 502k (2022 Sep 14 03:40)
Taken on the March trip, showing the cliff tops.
The cliff base is hidden by a bend in the stream.
Karen in the foreground. Photo Colin Cook
Turere2.jpg: 540x732, 278k (2022 Sep 14 03:41)
Turere3.jpg: 1512x1920, 1709k (2022 Sep 14 03:41)
Turere side stream, Photo: Lynne White

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.

Page last modified on 2022 Sep 14 03:44

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