This was the second time the Club has done a night walk (they went to Wenderholm in April 1996). The novelty of doing a tramp in the dark attracted eighteen people to walk through the Waiatarua Reserve near Meadowbank followed by supper chez Paul Ungemuth close to the reserve. And we were grateful to God for putting on good weather - it wasn’t cold, wet or windy, just a pleasant calm and cloudy night. All but four of us met at The Bracken at 6:30pm and drove to Paul’s home to meet up with the others. Once everyone was ready we set off along Grand Drive and into the Waiatarua Reserve. We did an anticlockwise circuit of the farm tracks in the reserve - just about all the reserve except for a wetland area in the middle is leased out by the Auckland City Council for grazing. It gave a feeling of walking out in the country, although we could see the lights of suburbia not far away. In one place we passed a whole horde of cows lying down sound asleep on the grass. Then we did the circuit of the wetland area. The track was mostly boardwalk, and we soon came to a side path leading to a lookout beside the main pond. We kept quiet and turned our torches off to listen for sounds of birds, etc. We did hear one or two birds fly off when startled by our presence, but it was good just to stop and savour the peace and quiet of the wetland bird sanctuary. This had been created in 1987 when a plan to redevelop the reserve was put into action. We then carried on along the boardwalk alongside and through bush, stopping in several places, keeping as quiet as we could to hear the occasional bird crow or fly off, and this we could hear several times. We also imagined what the place was like over seventy years ago when it was Lake Waiatarua, a broad shallow lake in the valley between Meadowbank at Mt Wellington.

We returned along a farm track and Grand Drive to chez Paul, where a lovely pot-luck supper was awaiting us. There was plenty of time to browse the Club Albums and members’ photos and simply catch up with one another and reflect on our novel nocturnal experience.