It was a balmy Autumn Day when we met at Silverstream and car pooled down to Te Whiti Park. Sheila and I took a quick trip over the Wainuiomata Hill to deposit my car at the end of our walk. Then I got a lift back with her. This made us about 10 minutes late in starting but everyone was ready to start our 14km walk. It was a nice walk up the Te Whiti Riser which zigzags up the hill. At the crossroads we went right through some pretty bush before coming out on the ECNZ track. We then headed off in a southerly direction, passed the track we were going to descend on to get to our morning tea/lunch spot. At the bottom of this track, I sparked a period of confusion as I thought I had yelled out ‘if you need the loo, go into these bushes and then follow the track up the hill.’ Off I marched and everyone else waited for me to re-appear from the toilet stop, they thought I’d made. I was busy snacking when I thought, where is everyone? Just as I was about to go on a search, the group arrived. We sat there and enjoyed the views before heading back down and turning onto the Konini Climb. This track is only about 12 months old; the bikes can only come up but walkers can go both ways. This means the bike were easy to spot. The track wound down the hill for 6.5kms through some really lovely bush before joining onto some of the older tracks which took us to the park. We were all feeling a little footsore (Rusty looked like he wanted more) when we arrived at the end 4 hours after setting off, so enjoyed a break to polish off the remnants of our lunches before I took the drivers back over the hill to collect their cars and we all drove back to load up our respective passengers. We waved goodbye to Gordon and Rusty and the rest of us drove to California Garden Centre for a much-needed cuppa.

Trip Leader – Judith O’Leary

Walkers – Sharon, Anna, Sheila and her friend Jenny, Trisha & Paul, Suzanne, Annemarie, Gordon, Delphine, and Rusty the dog.