The Club likes to do off-the-beaten-track tramps as well as established tracks, and the tramp through from Maraetai to Brookby was no exception.  We started at Maraetai and tramped through to Brookby along the hills of the Maraetai Forest, through a variety of terrain including forestry roads, bush tracks and a small amount of pasture, a trip that proved to be scenic especially when travelling through a part of the forest that had just been milled. The pineforest is owned by Carter Holt Harvey and we had to get permission to go through. Carter Holt Harvey has a policy of charging $3/person for organised events such as tramping club trips. We left The Bracken soon after 8am, and met three people at the BP station at Whitford. One car was left at the Brookby end while all the others went through to Maraetai. The first part of the tramp was along a forestry road through pines, climbing over a hill before the main climb up to Pukekawa Trig. We were able to look back out towards Waiheke Island, otherwise most of the view was hidden by vegetation. At Pukekawa Trig we left the road to follow an old vehicle track that continued along the ridge and eventually went off to the right. At this point we turned left into a well-formed bush track (basically an overgrown vehicle track) that went through native bush for about half an hour, generally continuing close to the ridge, to come out to some open pasture. The owner of the farm land, a David Lee, had given us permission to go through this.

By now it was 12 midday, and we sat down for lunch on top of the ridge with excellent views looking down the farms  towards Auckland, Howick and Rangitoto Island. We then went back into the forest through a locked gate just one minute from our lunch stop, following forest roads and coming on to Main Rd, that mostly follows the main ridge through the southern block of the forest. Once on Main Rd we were in an area of milled forest and had wonderful views eastwards towards the Kawakawa Bay/Ponui Island/McCallums Island area. Before long we came to a major intersection of forestry roads. To the left was Herbert Rd - this would go through lovely mature forest, dropping down into and following a gully before climbing over the other side. Once upon a time this road would come out on North Rd near Clevedon but has since become overgrown beyond the gully and would also go through private land. Main Rd went down to the right, descending into a valley towards Brookby. This was our route; we would have come out directly onto Kimpton Rd at Brookby, but there was a quarry which was strictly off-limits to any form of public access, and just before the high locked gates on Main Rd we had to take Culvert Rd to our left. Culvert Rd proved to be an awful grunt, but our way out was to go through a taranaki gate in the fenceline at the top of this hill and follow a track dropping down to Kimpton Rd. We were out just before 3pm. Although we had no rain on the tramp, apart from a slight spit just before Herbert Rd, we had to put up with a few heavy showers while waiting for the drivers to return with their cars. A local farmer was very nice enough to come out with a cup of tea for us. COST: $7 travel; $3 permit fee