Auckland Baptist Tramping Club 2000 Seventeen trampers participated in what is one of the toughest trips in the Waitakere Ranges, the Pararaha Gorge, starting and finishing at Karekare. Leaving the beach carpark at 10am we walked around the cliffs  at the southern end of the beach. Enjoying the rugged west coast features, we followed the route of the old beach railway towards Whatipu. The spikes of the old rack are still in evidence and we passed through the rail tunnel hewn from solid rock before reaching the turnoff into the Pararaha Valley.  The railway, now long gone, had been used to transport kauri logs to the railhead under the large rock just under the Manukau Harbour at Whatipu, after which they continued their journey by sea. We walked from the beach to the shelter part way up the Pararaha Valley where we stopped for a lengthy morning tea, mindful of the rugged gorge which would sap our energy. Light cloud provided cool relief. Leaving at 11:30am, we clambered over the rocks that line the gorge, crossing the stream several times. In one place we had to pull ourselves up and voer a large jumble of fallen logs. Several took a path through the deep parts of the stream swimming on occasion, and after more scrambling over tricky rocks and climbing a vertical section of bush track we reached our lunch spot on the rocks surrounded by deep pools with distant views back down the valley. We contemplated the energy and initiative of the loggers who had moved many thousands of large logs down the gorge utilising a build-up of water behind kauri dams to wash the logs downstream to the railway. We could also imagine back in the 1960s boy scouts being given this route as part of their First Class Badge test - they had to do it downstream with full packs! It was now becoming very sunny, and recommencing our walk at 1:15 we soon turned left on to the Odlins timber Track which took us to the Zion Ridge  and Zion Hill Tracks which afforded splendid views of the rugged bush and coastline. Descending the Zion Hill Track to the spectacular Karekare Beach  we completed our walk at 3:10pm in brilliantly fine conditions. A few took the opportunity of a cold water plunge under the waterfall at the beach end of the Karekare Stream before making our way home.