Auckland Baptist Tramping Club 2005

The main feature of this weekend away was a tramp across private land from the summit of Kennedy Bay Rd finishing at Colville on the Saturday, with a shorter tramp on the White Star farm on the Sunday. Friday Carloads had been arranged to pick up from people's homes as the drivers wanted to get away from Auckland at different times for the journey to Colville. Therefore nobody had to meet at The Bracken. We arrived at the Colville Farm backpacker hostel 1.5km south of the Colville village later in the evening. John C, Stan and Colin stayed in the backpacker section of the hostel, while the rest of the group had the use of a house not far from the woolshed where the Club stayed in after climbing Moehau in June 2001. And, of course, there was only one thing for us to do when we got there - watch the Crusaders thrash the Hurricanes! Saturday We set out from the hostel about 8:30am in a van and car for the 45minute drive up to the summit of the gravel Kennedy Bay Rd northeast of Coromandel, known as Tokatea. At about 9:20am we started our walk along a private 4whd track following the main dividing ridge of the Coromandel Ranges northwestwards through native bush. Unfortunately we were in the clouds and had to miss out on panoramic views of the Kennedy Bay area to our right, and later view looking down to Coromandel on the left as shown by these photos taken on a private trip in 2000. We reached the Telecom tower, just past a side track that would continue to follow the main divide, at about 10:45am after about 4km and had our elevenses stop. From there the track continued on an undulating course for about half an hour before entering a lovely stand of pine forest. We dropped below the clouds and had our first glimpses onto the Colville valley. We soon came to a patch of lovely pine forest. The large and highly poisonous fly agaric toadstools growing on the ground were a spectacle to the eye and a visual wonder of God's creation. We eventually came out to a viewpoint looking out towards Amodeo Bay. The track come out of the pines into scrub land and began to make its descent into the Colville valley. There were some spectacular stands of nikau just before the tiny Flat Rock quarry. Just beyond the quarry we took a side track that led to a lovely lunch possy overlooking the Colville valley. Peter shared a devotions on the subject of Words. We say words all the time; as we tramp we extend our vocabulary with words describing the environment and God's beautiful creation. We have to be careful in what we say in our daily speech. Harsh words lead to anger and resent; gentle words are far more effective. Positive words lead to praise and encouragement. We returned to the track to continue our downhill into the valley. The track was a bit overgrown in places, with a few fallen trees blocking the way. We came out to a field with large boulders, reminiscent of Stony Batter on Waiheke Island. The vehicle track carried on through bush and scrub to cross a stream and come out into open paddocks; this was the start of the farm section of the White Star property. We continued across the farm, following - and fording several times - the Colville Stream, and reached our accommodation about 2:30pm. Gary took the drivers back to collect their vehicles from Tokatea. Barbara, Joy, Peter, Carole, John M and Sonia went to the Colville store for icecreams. While Barbara, Joy, Sonia and Peter drove on a further km or two to the Colville beach, which was covered thick with seabirds, Carole and John decided to walk the 1.5km back to the hostel, stopping to see a fancy Buddhist temple on the way. Peter and his team served up a yummy dinner in the house on Colville Farm. Sunday In the middle of the night, as everyone was wentililloing, some pitter-patter on the roof was an omen of what we would do once we were up and breakfasted. The sun came up before heads were off the wentilillos, but we were not to see it. The pitter-patter continued......

We ate our breakfast, packed up, ran the hoover through the house and were in our vehicles by 10am headed to Coromandel on our homeward journey. Retail therapy was the theme of our break; we browsed several art and craft shops and an antique shop before we put on our raincoats and headed back to the cars to carry on to Thames for lunch. As we travelled down the Coromandel coast we could see our reminder that God will never flood the whole world again.

It was as early as 2pm when we got back home to Auckland after an enjoyable weekend that included one day tramp and heaps of fellowship. COSTS: $70-80 (accommodation $26-80; travel $31; food $13)