This article was published in Tararua Tramper in November 2025
Wainuiomata to Eastbourne via Kiwi Corridor trapline
M - Saturday 4 October
Six keen trampers assembled at Wellington railway station in pouring rain. Our goal was to get to Waterloo station and then hop on the bus to Wainuiomata to start our tramp. Unfortunately, the train replacement bus was a few minutes late and we missed our connection at Waterloo station. Opportunistically we had some breakfast and coffee at a bakery across the street. We were all a bit nervous because we knew at the very start of the tramp, we’d have to cross the Wainuiomata River. It was still raining heavily and it had been raining most of the morning. Arriving at the southernmost bus stop in Wainuiomata at Ngaturi Grove, we met the others who were ready to embark on a journey through and over the hills of East Harbour Regional Park to the southernmost bus stop in Eastbourne at the bus terminus.
Across Ngaturi Park, we had a look at the river and it was definitely up but still considered crossable. The river doesn’t have any rapids at this point and the flow of the river was moderately fast, but even throughout. A few of us were a bit nervous about the river crossing and we crossed it in couples and triples to support each other. It was a good and fun river-crossing exercise in the rain. Despite the river coming up to our thighs it went smoothly and with this biggest obstacle out of the way we were all committed to proceed toward Eastbourne. It was a bit of a scramble to find the Kiwi Corridor (MIRO) trapline but we found a trail that sidled up on the bank of the true right of a creek and led us to the trapline.
The trapline led us back down to the creek, which we crossed and went back up the other side. Travel was easy going at this point. Easier than I expected, because on one of my personal recce's of the area a few months ago I wasn’t able to find my way through with the trapline markers, because the bush was too dense to traverse easily. But we were lucky the dense bush had been cleared very recently, giving us easy passage.
An hour or so later we were at the ridge at spot height .360 (locally known as Puketea). We continued south along the east ridge trapline between Gollans Stream and Wainuiomata’s Coast Road. Unfortunately, the weather was still not good, and we were soaking wet. It started raining even more as soon as we found a relatively dry spot for morning tea at 10:30 a.m. Not so dry anymore!
We quickly stuffed our soggy morning tea and after a cheerful and uplifting song from Tim, kept going along the east ridge southwards. The bush was very cold and wet from the fresh rain.
The rain eased! An hour and a bit later we found our turnoff and followed a trapline down a steep-ish spur to Gollans Stream. I was afraid this spur would be very slippery in the rain, but fortunately the rain didn’t affect the conditions a lot. Maybe because there’s not a lot of people going down this route.
We followed the stream down to the Butterfly Creek picnic area via the trapline that goes along it, doing many stream crossings and being led astray slightly a few times by confusing markers. The sun peeked through the clouds during a pleasant lunch at 12:30.
From the picnic area we walked up the marvellous track to Bus Barn Track for the grand finale, and down to Eastbourne bus terminus on the zig-zagging track. We did not have to wait long for the bus back to town - 5 minutes. Some of us changed into dry clothes on the bus. A great day. Total 6h 40m, 12 km, 730m up and 800m down. (M V)
Mike Voets (leader), Tracey Avolio, Bonnie Chen, Jake McLaren, Graham Morley, Tim Stone, Yuri Takemoto, Sarah White