A first for the Club - a mystery tramp! The Club had never done a mystery trip before, and as something different for the annual visit to Rotorua it was decided to make Sunday’s tramp a complete mystery.   Almost 30 people decided to help unravel the mystery. Friday We left The Bracken promptly at 6:15pm and, on the way to Rotorua, stopped for munchies at Matamata to give drivers a break from the monotonous State Highway 27.Our arrival at Lakeview Bible Camp was about 10pm, and we settled into the Matthew and Paul cabins, which we had used on previous trips. Matthew contained the kitchen and lounge plus two dorms - one for single men and one for single ladies. The six 4-bed dorms in Paul were used by the married couples and the remaining single ladies. Saturday A first for the Club - the Vice-Presidential Blue Bush Shirt Cups Of Tea In Bed Service - simply, the old red bush shirt (actually red-and-black check) symbolised the Crusaders, and blue symbolised the Blues from Auckland, who had thrashed the Crusaders a couple of weeks ago on the Eden Park rugby field! We were away soon after 8pm for a day tramp in Waiotapu Forest. We left cars at the end of our tramp - Echo Lake - then brought the drivers back in two cars to the start, at Kerosene Creek on the Old Waiotapu Rd. Base map: NZTopoOnline, extracted May 2003, Crown Copyright Reserved Our tramp started with the 15min track that runs alongside Kerosene Creek, a popular swimming spot in a stream that runs over hot springs. The main swimming hole is below a waterfall, over which the hot water can cascade onto the backs of bathers sitting below. This came out on Volcano Road, which we followed about 2km to a large pool of boiling mud, which is also accessible from the Waiotapu Loop Road near the Lady Knox Geyser. It was now almost 11am, and it was too late to see the geyser, which is activated each day at 10:15am. We returned to Thermal Road and headed along that, passing the occasional vent of steam in the surrounding scrub. Our elevenses stop was on a grass area about three-quarters of the way along Thermal Rd, and Phillip D told us about a thermal area he had visited in 1990 in the Holy Land. There were terraces there, very much like the Pink and White Terraces that were destroyed by the eruption of Mt Tarawera in 1886. Water draining from these springs would flow down into the valley containing the city of Laodicea, the subject of the well-known Bible passage (Revelation 3:14ff) in which Jesus commands John in a vision to write to the church there about its lukewarmness. The Laodiceans would know what lukewarmness meant through the thermal waters cooling down as they reached the city. The lesson we could learn from this is the importance of being whole-hearted in our faith in our being and doing, to be whole-hearted in our commitment to Jesus Christ, and not let other things get in the way to water this down. Thermal Rd came out onto The Avenue, and we followed this around to the Echo Lake Road, just before Echo Lake. It was 11:45am when we arrived, and we followed Echo Lake Rd - not the gravel forestry roads we had been on but a partly-overgrown 4whd track that gradually climbed, passing a few small clearings, to come to another vehicle track on a ridge. We turned right and followed this track as it dropped down through a larger clearing then come to the northern clifftops of Echo Lake. From there we took a rough bush track that went down into a gully and up to meet the Martha’s Pass track that links the Waiotapu Forest School (a school camp) with Echo Lake. We were able to look down this spectacular milky blue lake to the Waiotapu area beyond. The rest of the track along the clifftops of Echo Lake was much easier going, and we had our lunch stop in a nice sunny possy overlooking the lake near where our cars were parked. We had obtained permission to enter the Waiotapu thermal reserve from Echo Lake, but we needed to bush-crash our way rather than risk damaging the sulphur cones on the Waiotapu Stream. Going in from about 50 metres south of the carpark, it was an easy 20-minute bash through level terrain to come on to a track dropping down to the Alum Lakes. These lakes, and the rest of the thermal reserve, drained into Lake Ngakoro down a small waterfall. In the distance was the hazy outline of Mt Tauhara. We had a look at Frying Pan Flat and Oyster Pool before walking past the Alum Cliffs made of alum, a sulphate mineral containing aluminium and other metallic elements. From there the track went up alongside the vast Primrose Terrace, New Zealand’s largest silica terrace since the destruction of the Pink and White Terraces. God had made an extensive and delicate “mini-Pink and White Terraces” pattern in this terrace. The spectacular Champagne Pool with its orange line and blue-green waters is the deepest hot spring in the district at 60 metres, the same as its diameter. We then had a look at several craters, all different, with different names - Inferno, Bird’s Nest (starlings and mynahs nest on the walls where the heat incubates their eggs), Rainbow and Devil’s Bath which we nicknamed St Patrick’s because of the rich green colour of its pond. A lookout gave a great view of the Champagne Pool and the Artist’s Palette, the upper part of the Primrose Terrace. We returned across a boardwalk over the terrace, and onto a bush walk that gave views of the Alum Cliffs and Lake Ngakoro, and also Echo Lake surrounded by bush and pineforest. We were back at our cars about 3:15pm, and decided to go to Waikite Thermal Valley for our relaxing hot swim. A feature of a Club weekend away in Rotorua is dining out on the Saturday night, and this time we chose the Quality Hotel near Whakarewarewa (except Christine and Simon who went elsewhere), which offered a lovely all-you-can-eat smorgasbord for only $19-95.

Some of us went on to the Shannessy’s pub in central Rotorua afterwards for a spot of Irish music and dancing before returning to Lakeview Bible Camp. Sunday This was our mystery day. The Blue Bush Shirt went through the dorms with the Cups Of Tea to get the heads off the wentilillos and feet onto the floor ready for an early breakfast and a getaway by 7:15am. Still, we didn’t know what we would be in for. Our leaders told us to pack our warm gear “just in case”. The drivers had to have everyone in the car seated, back and front with belts on, before being handed sealed envelopes containing instructions that the passengers were not allowed to see. Passengers, especially those in the back seat, kept on guessing all sorts of things in their minds as their drivers headed through Rotorua, and out towards Rainbow Mountain, then onto SH38 (to Murupara etc), then Rerewhakaiitu Rd, Brett Rd and Ashpit Rd. The drivers stopped at a carpark on Ashpit Rd, still wondering why there were directed there. As the leaders moved over to check in with some people in uniform overcoats, the mystery was finally revealed. Base map: NZTopoOnline, extracted June 2003, Crown Copyright Reserved We would find ourselves boarding 4-wheel-drive buses to drive up to the summit plateau of Mt Tarawera, a private Maori-owned mountain that was popular with trampers in years gone by, but is now strictly off-limits to the public other than on guided tours. This was a one-off open day just before the anniversary of the extremely violent eruption in the “wee small hours” of 10 June 1886 that claimed 153 lives, destroyed the Pink and White Terraces, belched ash into the air to a height of 11km, sparked a fantastic display of lightning, and was so loud it was heard as far away as Auckland and Christchurch. Because the buses could seat only 21 people, we had to go up in two groups. The first one took 21 of our group and left at 8:30am; the second one took the remaining people (other than two who had been up the mountain before and volunteered to pull out due to a mistake with bookings) plus others not from our group, leaving at 9am. The drive up a rough and narrow road that American soldiers built during World War II took 30 minutes, and from the main carpark on the summit plateau our guide led us up to the edge of Ruawahia Crater, part of a deep chasm extending about 5km. We were taken on the one-hour White Track walk. Time did not permit the longer Yellow Track Walk so we had to miss out on visiting the summit trig and its extensive views, but the walk down into the main crater was a spectacular experience in itself. This began with a descent down a slope of loose scree to the bottom of the crater. The scree was so loose that we did not lift our feet off the ground as we walked! One of the people on the second tour, who was not with the Club group, was a geologist and told us about the rocks in the volcano, and how it was formed, as we had a short rest stop at the bottom of the crater. It was a steady climb over scree back to the edge of the crater at the lower car park, where we waited for our bus to come for the journey down the mountain.

On our way down we stopped at a hut named Base Camp, where we had a look at a display on Mt Tarawera and the eruption, and could purchase refreshments while waiting for the next upwards bus group to pass us on the one-way road.

We returned to Ashpit Rd and drove back to Lakeview Bible Camp for lunch. Nelson reminded us once more about the Tarawera eruption, and what a violent eruption it was. Similarly, Jesus Christ died a violent death, having come into a violent world. But Jesus came into the world to bring love and peace, and to die for us, taking the punishment for our sins and the evils of the world. Christ can restore us, and give us the fruit of the Holy Spirit - love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness and self-control (Galatians 5:22). Nelson also described Christ as our unmovable rock, a fortress, a shield and a deliverer (Psalm 144:1). Hoovers, mops and brooms out - we were packed and cleaned up and away before 2pm homeward bound. A fast run along State Highway 27 and we were back in Auckland about 5pm, bringing to an end a memorable action-packed weekend. COSTS: Travel $40; accommodation $20; food $8; Waikite Hot Pools $6; dinner at Quality Hotel $19-95.