November 2023 News

The passing of Owen Rees and Vic Bullock

Within the space of a few weeks, the club has lost two stalwart members.

Owen Rees was a life member of our club. Sadly, he passed away on 18 October, aged 88.

At a recent club meeting, Ted Angove spoke very fondly of the fun and antics they used to get up to. Apparently Owen, Ted and Paul Exeter were nicknamed the Three Musketeers.

Owen was a great organiser of trips to places such as Coromandel and Northland, but sometimes he would get a few people together and they’d just take off; no one else really knew where they’d end up and they would spend a few days exploring, camping and tramping. Our thoughts are with his wife Eileen and family.

Vic Bullock died on 2 November 2023 aged 92.

His funeral notice referenced the scout song The Happy Wanderer. Here’s the first verse, which encapsulates Vic’s time with us:

I love to go a-wandering,
Along the mountain track,
And as I go, I love to sing,
My knapsack on my back.

Our 50th Anniversary

We have created a website page where all the information will be placed on events being planned for this celebration. It can be found under ‘History’.

Highway Walk

There’s a chance to get a sneak preview of the new highway linking the Manawatu with Hawke’s Bay. We may make this Woodville Lions Club fund-raiser in late January a club event.

If you think that you might like to walk the highway, register your interest on the Tramp booking system. That will give the committee an idea of expected numbers.

• The tramping programme for the first six months of 2024 has been finalised. Head over to the Trip List to see what’s planned.

 

Wilding pine update

Graham Leech reports:

Thanks to the magnificent seven yesterday (10 November) – Andy, Sam, Campbell, John, Mark, Giles and me.

Another 1008 pines are gone, 182 of them in Blowhard Bush on behalf of Forest & Bird. It was great to walk around the Tui Track – we found quite a few as the bush recedes towards the ridge – a number of smaller ones but some bigger ones that we poisoned too.

At The Lakes, we used the recent flyover from DoC to locate a few bigger ones that had so far escaped us.  We got those by the new public access road and the 4WD track between the two lakes.  And where the big ones are, we find smaller seedlings appearing.  Next trip we’ll have a go at the douglas firs that have infiltrated up by the public car park.

Afoot held a Duke of Edinburgh Conservation Programme for Gold students during the school holidays up at Kuripapango. Part of their programme was a morning spent clearing wilding pines – so another 200 gone.

They also spent a day with Forest & Bird in Blowhard Bush, planting trees and clearing broom.  We spotted a few wilding pines on the way round, so we are planning to help there for the afternoon on our next volunteer day.  Those of you who haven’t been to Blowhard Bush will enjoy the huge trees we’ll see on our way around there – flocks of whitehead too.