A tramp in the Waitakere Ranges in the Westie tradition by Phillip and Laurie attracted 28 people. These Westie outings, which take place once or twice a year, are characterised by Laurie’s truck-back hospitality where he boils up a brew of tea on a gas cooker on the back of his ute. We left The Bracken as usual at 8am, and met up with more people at the Huia store. As soon as our two Westie leaders arrived it was not prayer-and-away straight away, it was tea and bickies on the little reserve beside the beach. It was after 10am by the time we prayed-and-awayed, leaving from the school-bus carpark just before the Huia bridge. We roadbashed a short way to the start of the Twin Peaks Track, a good grunt to get the tramp off to a start. About halfway up to the junction with Tom Thumb Track there was a lookout over the Huia bay; beyond this there was a little bit of scrambling over rock, and we arrived at the large kauri tree at the junction for elevenses at 11am. Some of us took the 15min side track climbing to the top of Goat Hill where we could see the Huia Reservoir and the bushclad hills beyond. Tom Thumb Track was a steady but gentle downhill, and we had our lunch where the track crosses the rugged rocky bed of the Karamatura Stream. Afterwards we split up into three groups - the slow group would walk the Karamatura loop track, an easy hour back to the car park; the medium group would climb up the Karamatura Track to the Donald McLean Track and come down the Fletcher Track; and the fast group would also take in the Mt Donald McLean summit. Karamatura Track was a long steep grunt plateauing out above the valley to a more gentle uphill approach to the junction with Donald McLean Track and a well deserved rest stop to the music of cicadas chirping in the trees - a sound that would disappear in a week or two now that the daylight-saving summer season was next to finished. Mt Donald McLean Track was a more gentle well formed track with much level travel, coming out at the Donald McLean car park. In places the bush was so low we could see the surrounding hills including Mt Donald McLean. From the car park a 15-minute track circled the summit before finishing at the trig. Two viewing platforms gave great views of Whatipu and Manukau Heads to the west, and the Manukau Harbour with Auckland city in the distance to the east. To the south we could just see the outline of Mt Karioi on the hazy horizon.

We returned to the junction of Fletcher Track, arriving at 3:15pm; the medium group had gone through at 2:30pm. Fletcher Track was much rougher, following an undulating course along the south ridge of the Karamatura, with one or two views out to Little Huia.

Later we were in for a steep drop down to the Karamatura Valley and five minutes along a wide track brought us to the car park where Laurie’s cooker was once more getting those cups of tea ready. We were out by about 4pm.

We had our mandatory stop at Huia Store for our icecreamerology before heading homewards, having enjoyed a good physical workout among some of God’s more rugged creation on Auckland’s doorstep. COST: $5