Tramp Reflections 820 - Okataina Rata, Rotorua

5 July 2009

Leader / Co-Leader: Lorna Gribble/ Sheila Toppin. Participants: Lorna, Sheila, Helen Mclean (Te Awamutu Club), Maree Drinkwater (Te Awamutu Club), Marion O'Connel (Monday Club), John Featherstone, Don Stover, Clare Summers, Michiel Dim, Anna Lim, Louise Carter.

This trip was a first for our club and Lorna had kindly agreed to lead it for us. Our quest for the day was to find the 'Phantom' giant Rata and other big Rata along the way. We began our trip at the end of the Lake Okataina Rd opposite the lodge. Heading along the Eastern Okataina Walkway for about 30mins until we reached the Kaiwaka Bay sign post by the lake edge. In the bush directly above the signpost we saw a marker with "Lone Tawa via the Cathedral" scratched on it. This was the beginning of a steep hard climb up which leveled of after about 20 minutes. Various groups had obviously been in before us all marking their own track and it was difficult at times to know which set of markers to follow. We saw some fairly large Rata but Lorna kept telling they were not the 'Phantom'.

We had lunch in a clearing but it started to drizzle so we took shelter in the bush. Then some of the guys disappeared, apparently there are Wallabies in this area of the bush and Michiel and Don were adamant they saw one so went Wallaby chasing!!! More highlights were the Cathedral Rata and the Archway Rata, a kind of two in one tree, there was some debate as to which tree was the mother tree, even Michiel climbing up and along the arch was unable to end the debate for us. On our way to the 'Phantom' we came across a lovely muddy pig wallow...everyone tried persuading everyone else to give it a go as it was great for the complexion etc etc, but there were no takers! Lorna took us along the gully further after the pig wallow and then on a steep climb up to the left and there was the 'Phantom', it certainly was huge dwarfing the other sizable trees around it. It measured some15 meters around.

We back tracked to get our returning to the Eastern Okataina Walkway a little further on than we had left it, a 45 minute walk along the lake saw us back at the car park. It was good day and a good group of people. We enjoyed the company of our colleagues from other clubs and we had lots of laughs on the way. Thanks Lorna for giving up your time to lead us on what turned out to be a great trip, which I'm sure we'll be revisiting.

Written by Sheila Toppin.

Photographs by unknown (Olympus FE340,X855,C560).