A windy trek up to Wharite Peak

Wharite Peak, Ruahine FP, Saturday 27 August 2016
Photos taken by Elly and Gerard Govers.

Only five left the Park Island car park on this Saturday day tramp. Our driver, Gerard, was the only male but I’m sure he enjoyed the company of four lady passengers.

We decided we needed a coffee at Dannevirke so stopped off en route. Arriving at the Coppermine Road car park, it was windy and a bit cooler than when we had left Napier. We all put on our jackets; it looked like raining.

There was a huge tree across the main Coppermine track but we were able to go down and around it and back onto the track again.

The climb up from the junction was fairly steep but we were lucky to have the leatherwood to protect us from the very strong winds all the way to the top. As we neared the radio, TV and cellphone transmission tower, the wind blowing through it sounded like a low-flying jet airliner.

We tried to find somewhere out of the wind for a lunch break but there was no shelter, so we huddled against one of the buildings and had a snack. There wasn’t much of a view either, because it was very cloudy.

Lower down the track, we halted for lunch in the shelter of the leatherwood, and then it was a quick trip back down. Luckily the rain didn’t come to anything and it wasn’t as slippery as we had expected – although a couple of us had dirty shorts.

We were back at the car park by 2pm, stopped off at the Tiko pub for another coffee and something more to eat and were back to Napier by 4pm.

Only one of us had been on this tramp before, so it was great that the rest were finally able to make it – even though the views weren’t as spectacular as we had hoped.

Trampers: Elly, Gerard, Jude, Viv, and reporter Rosemary.