First Thursday tramp for 2013

Our destination was No. 1 Line in the Pohangina Valley.  A DOC track leads in to the hills from the car park at the end of the road.  About 5 minutes walk along the track is a very large, old rimu tree - it is very impressive!  

The big rimu - photo taken on a previous visit

We then walked uphill for about an hour to a seat with a view over the Manawatu.  The maintained track ends here, but 10 of us carried on to explore how far we could get on a roughly cut hunters' track.  It was cut through leatherwood and was difficult going.  By midday we could see across to the Hawkes Bay and decided to stop, have lunch and return to catch up with the other 10 in our group.  We covered 7.7 km in 6 1/2 hours (including stops) which shows just how slow the going was on the hunters' track.

Finding our way - looking east

A welcome sit down on the way out - looking towards Palmerston North with Kapiti Island visible