This article was first published in the Tararua Tramper Volume 83, no 8, September 2010
Baring Head– Pencarrow Lakes (M)
Wednesday 10 August
The prospect of another wonderful Wellington winter’s day tempted 35 trampers to visit the wild beauty of the East Harbour Regional Park.
The weather wasn’t perfect. Forecast breezes were more like gales with windchill freezes. But the sun shone, the views were magnificent and the company congenial.
Our trip started at the bridge across the Wainuiomata River and we wandered down the right bank of the river then up onto the broad terraces of Baring Head. This area has recently been brought into the East Harbour Regional Park and for many, including myself, it was a first visit. The old macrocarpas around the abandoned light housekeepers’ houses gave some shelter from the wind and we took our first rest. Then back into the wind along Fitzroy Bay where the courageous visited a dead whale stranded high on the beach. We found some sun and shelter on the eastern shore of Lake Kohangatera for lunch, then made our way to the top of Camerons Ridge. To the west was little Lake Kohangapiripiri and to the south the mountains of the South Island. It was clear enough to see the twin peaks of Fishtail in the Richmond Range and imagine the skiers on the Rainbow skifield. But we were not envious.
Then back the way we had come with a shortcut across the hill to the carpark. Wellington walking at its wintry best
- Party members
- David Ogilvie, John Neas, Maris Weight, Bill Stephenson, Paddy Gresham (trip leader and scribe), Kerry Popplewell, Bill Wheeler, Jennifer Roberts, Tony Vial, Lynne Pomare, David Castle, Tricia French, Mike Crozier, Bob Stephens, Ray Markham, Richard Willis (partly obscured), Don McMaster, Robin Chesterfield, Susan Guscott, Peter Barber, Jim Sutton, Colin Cook. Sitting, kneeling or reclining in front, from the left: Penny Salmond, Peter Radcliffe, Geraldine Keith, Diane Head, Howard Larsen, Bruce Popplewell, Craig Rickit, Rosemary Wilson, Nina Price, Syd Edwards, Trish Gardiner-Smith
