Tramp Reflections 821 - Workman Rd Track, Hunuas

12 July 2009

Janey Nolan, Adrienne van Hellemond, Kathy Old, Dianne Bowen, Lynne Ironside Anne McIndoe, Brett Robinson and Alan Bigham set off from Pak n Save at 7.30am. While driving there was a sudden beeping in the van that we thought was our new emergency locator but turned out to be Dianne's mobile's alarm. With no further incident, if you disregard the slight difficulty we had discerning which road actually was SH 2, closer to our destination; we continued to drive to Workman Road, to the car park at the bridge over the Mangatangi River.

The weather report was for the early showers to clear and fortunately they did by the time we set out. We were just 10 minutes ahead of about 10 people from the Manukau Tramping Club. Lynne discovered that she forgot her pack! Fortunately we rallied around; Anne had a spare pack, Janey had more than enough lunch for Lynne as Malcolm didn't tramp with her and Adrienne shared her can of Tuna at lunchtime. Lynne was offered lots of goodies.

We walked up the Workman Track through gorgeous mosses and there were lots of beautiful young Kauri particularly on the early section of the track. Adrienne found a warm spot in the winter sun for morning tea and we then dropped down to the Auckland water supply dam and reservoir. This Mangatangi dam is New Zealand's largest water supply and the second largest earth dam. We crossed it near the bottom end of the dam and walked up Mangatangi Road.

This change of direction was pleasantly more sheltered from the wind and we turned at the sign for the trig to venture up to Mangatangi Trig; Kathy was striding out in the lead here, desperate for lunch. Again we found a sheltered sunny spot with out of the wind for lunch at about 12.30. The Manukau tramping club then caught up with us and should have joined us in our spot but they went on and we passed them again later and stopped to chat. We found out they have 2 tramps every Sunday.

We continued walking along the Mangatangi Trig track and stopped for snacks and views that were most appreciated by our new trampers, Anne and Alan. We came out back where we ahad started only over the bridge.

Adrienne was the co-driver on the way home and Brett the direction master. As there was talking non-stop going on in the back, deciding which way to go at the major intersection, presented some confusion. Only two options, Tauranga and Auckland, were offered when in fact we wanted to go to Hamilton. This was somewhat challenging for some but we soon spotted a sign that said Mercer and decided to follow this along a back country road and figured that would get us home.....eventually; and that we did.

We had another great day with superb company shared by all. Special thanks to our new trampers who would look forward to "just sore legs, Monday"! Thanks for a great day, Janey, and a huge thanks to Isobel for showing Janey the track and helping with the reccie on the previous Thursday. They had had a perfect winter's day.

Written by Janey Nolan.

Photographs by Lynne Ironside (Fuji FinePix F480).