Auckland Baptist Tramping Club 2005

A total of 21 people turned up on a warm cloudless afternoon to climb two of Auckland’s volcanic cones and look at some new tracks in Newmarket. The trip began and finished at The Bracken so there was no carpooling this time. We left The Bracken soon after 1:30pm and walked into Warborough Ave to pass the site of the former Vasanta Garden School. This small primary school was started in 1919 by the Theosophical Society, which still owns the site today as its headquarters, but was forced to close forty years later when a replacement principal with theosophical beliefs could not be found at the very low salary offered. The school began in the majestic Vasanta House, which is now a protected historic house, but after a few years classrooms were built for all levels from kindergarten to Form 2 (Standard 6 or Year 8), plus a small chapel. The chapel and all the classrooms have since been demolished except for the Stds 1 & 2 room; the lower playground and shelter shed have given way to housing to supplement the Theosophical society’s income. A grassed right-of-way brought us to the top of Mt St John. As we walked around the rim of the crater we enjoyed panoramic views all around. The crater itself had a dry bottom due to the extended dry spell of weather; when the Club climbed Mt St John in December 1999 a small crater lake had formed.

We continued on to come out onto Mt St John Rd. A roadbash along Market Rd brought us to our second volcanic cone, Mt Hobson, which we climbed from its western side. We had a break at the summit where, once more, we could enjoy a panoramic view all around. As we headed down towards Remuera Rd, two more people joined up with us. These twin brothers had intended to join us earlier, but were held up on the way to The Bracken from their home in west Auckland. At the corner of Remuera Rd and Middleton Rd, just before the Newmarket shops, Jill left the group with her two children, one of whom had a sore foot, to go directly home. Carole also left us as she wanted to visit an outdoor sports shop. We followed a new boardwalk that started from Middleton Rd and went down into the Newmarket Gully. The gardener’s nightmare convolvulus made a lovely display of blue flowers as it threaded through the similarly-hated wattle and nightshade trees. The boardwalk finished at the end of a vehicle track and we followed this a short way before climbing through bush to come to the open lawn area of Newmarket Park. An attractive pond had been built within the last year on where a sports arena once stood. This had hosted soccer games in the 1960s and 1970s, but for many years it lay neglected and decrepit after a ground subsidence. Nearby was a large children’s climbing web, and three middle-aged children from our group had a go at climbing up it. And Geoff managed to reach the top!

It was 3:45pm as we climbed out of Newmarket Park and entered the Newmarket shopping centre along Railway Rd. We decided to walk the sunny east side of Broadway before crossing the road to go up to the cafe on the second floor of 277 to exercise our wallets and stomachs  on the balcony we could see where we had been.

A 15-minute walk afterwards brought us back to The Bracken about 5pm to bring to a close a lovely afternoon in perfect weather.