A single spot-height right on the park boundary; in the middle of nowhere and on the way to nowhere. The map says it's on the edge of farmland 100m above the road and just a few 100m from the Kiriwhakapapa road end. Previous experience says it is probably covered in gorse.
The support crew agrees to a road trip one fine Sunday and we head over the Remutakas with the top down. I'm wearing my disreputable scrub trousers and am fully expecting an unpleasant scrub bash.
What: Spot-heighting
Where: Kiriwhakapapa
When: 31 March 2019
Who: Solo
Map
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| Yep - that red line was it. Faint purple lines are various previous trips |
About 1:10pm I leave the support crew propped in the shade and wander back up the road a couple of 100m from the car park. In expectation of a hot grovel through gorse I have my best gardening gloves as well as scrub pants and boots.
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| Over dressed to kill |
At the forest park sign it's easy to pop into the bush and get to the wee creek. So far so good - no sign of impenetrable gorse.
Sometimes trips go as feared, and you have a story to tell; sometimes they go as intended and you get that smug glow from effective execution of an immaculate plan; and sometimes they go as hoped - i.e. better than you deserved.
In this case it's the latter - a short way in I angle left and up slope. There's a bit of loose rock on the ground but the scramble is not too steep. The bush gets a little tighter towards the top but no gorse.
The top is unremarkable with no view and a single survey peg rotting away. It's taken all of 15 minutes to get here. There's not much point hanging around.
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| The peak |
The scramble down is faster; 9 minutes later a slightly surprised support crew drags herself from the depths of some riveting yarn to apply chilled ginger beer to a barely warm 'tramper.'
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| The support crew hard at it |
And that's pretty much that really. 11 or 12 spots to go now I think - some of them will be scrubby but most are remote and hopefully a little more interesting.
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