Tramp Reflections 833 - Pauanui to Opoutere Beach Walk

6 December 2009

Leader / Co-Leader: Sheila Toppin / Nick Toppin

Participants: Sheila, Nick, Paul Rowland, Amy Gajjar, Kate Kerr, Adrienne Van Hellemond, Chris Barnett, Brett Robinson, Colleen Brimblecombe, Paul Brimblecombe

Nick and I had tried on 3 previous occasions to sort this tramp, on the last occasion we had the benefit of Adrienne's wisdom too... However, we were still missing the middle section of track when we started off on today's tramp. We needed to find the forestry road and the drop off down to Storm Bay at the Pauanui end....so everyone who tramped on the day had been forewarned (we might not make it, we would be bush bashing, we were on an adventure, only come if you're up for it!) some of us were also forearmed with machete or secateurs! The main group of 7 was dropped off to start in Opoutere.

Nick then drove Colleen and I around to Pauanui; we were making our way in from that end. The plan being, if, after 3 1/2 hours tramping we hadn't meet somewhere in the middle we'd all go into reverse gear, back out and meet up where we'd started! With sunshine and more than enough blue sky to make a pair of sailors pants, the Opoutere trampers set off with a short walk thru pine trees and then an hour's walk along the beach, just beautiful. Unfortunately they saw a lot of dead birdlife on the beach; no one was quite sure why that was! At the end of the beach they turned off the beach over a couple of farmland paddocks and scrambled up a small but steep track up to the Pa on the top of the cliff. A wee bit scary for our newbie tramper and newbie to New Zealand, Amy (she was forewarned!) but didn't she do well :).

Now, this is where their adventure started (and why Paul Rowland was with us, he and Gail Preston had successfully completed this trip before!) from here they had to bash their way thru the bush across the Pa to find the forestry road that took them along the top and hopefully to those of us who by then should have marked the drop-off point to down to Storm Bay. Meanwhile... at the Pauanui end, we had walked the beachside track, and over the stones around the bay past some caves, followed by a grunty climb up to a lookout over Pauanui/Tairua. Undulating track for another 1/2 hour took us to a Storm Bay sign to the left and after another hour saw us having lunch on the rocks down in Storm Bay.

After quick lunch we pushed thru the Flax on the other side of the creek and scrambled through some scratchy bush (marking as we went for the others as they came down) to find a skinny steep track under the Teatree that would lead us to the top, the forestry road and we hoped Paul's group. Boy, was it hot, steep and hard going! As we got closer to the top we wondered how the others had done and where they were, so as you do... we sent them a quick text... they answered! and were not too far away, so we got the whistles out and with a lot of blowing and hollering from both parties for 10 minutes or so we met up!

Everyone was still smiling (or was it more of a grimace!) anyway we exchanged pleasantries and some pertinent notes for a few minutes and then carried on our respective tramps. Adrienne, who had kindly decided to turn around and back track to Opoutere with Nick, Colleen and myself as she was not sure that we would find our way through over the Pa, lead us off up the forestry road a way and into the bush where the other guys had marked their exit, but once in the thick bush... we got lost anyway, even with Adrienne's help (where was all their marking when we needed it? ) we weren't lost for long as Nick spotted a tree in the distance that we had used as a land mark on a previous reccie, so we all bashed our way thru in that direction, then down the track and onto Opoutere beach and back to the car park where we had dropped the others off that morning.

Meanwhile... the others weren't to impressed with our marking at the top of the track either :) and it took them a few minutes to find the start but once found they had no problem, getting down to Storm Bay and around to the van at Pauanui, then a quick drive back round to pick us up. It was an exhausting day for all, but we had 'knocked the bugger off' and our ice creams at the Kopu Service Station were well deserved. Plus, Amy our newbie said she wants to come back for more!

A big thanks to everyone who took part on the day in leading my tramp for me, I couldn't have done it without you.

Written by Sheila Toppin, your intrepid leader!

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