The hills between Tauranga and Te Puke made for a very enjoyable first-time visit ever by the Club. Eleven trampers took this opportunity to explore the Otawa Scenic reserve, using the girl guide camp in the area as base. Friday We left The Bracken soon after 6:15pm and travelled to Tauranga via State Highway 27 with the customary munchie stop at Matamata. Yes, the owner of one of the takeaway bars now knows us for all the times we use Matamata as a stop. We arrived at the Otawa girl guide camp after 11pm, so tired it was straight to bed. The menfolk had the dorm upstairs while the ladies slept in the main hall below. Saturday About 9am, before we set out on our tramping, Joy shared the day’s thoughts in the devotional Every Day With Jesus. The Bible passage was Exodus 13:17-22, where God led Moses and the Israelites through the Red Sea wilderness with a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. The thought gained from this passage is that God plans and directs our way in everything, just as He led the people through the wilderness instead of the more direct route through the land of the Philistines who were their enemies. It may not be the easiest or the most straightforward way, but there is a purpose in this. This was a very fitting devotion, as the Club newsletter Fire and Cloud takes its name from this Bible story. Alasdair and the two children, David and Clinton, climbed directly up to Otawa Trig. The rest of us, joined by Claire for this tramp only, drove to the start of the Otawa track on Upper Papamoa Road. The track started as a vehicle track climbing gradually up through farmland (private, with public access along the track only) to the first trig. We had a lovely view, even though it was a bit hazy, back to Mt Maunganui and Tauranga and on to Te Puke and the eastern Bay of Plenty. From there the track entered the bush and the start of the Otawa Scenic Reserve. There were pink and orange markers on the track - as soon as the track entered the bush it turned a sharp right-angle and somehow only John, Kath and Christine saw that. The others, deep in the train of conversation, just went on ahead and it took them quite a while to realise this and it was about half an hour once the first three reached the Otawa Trig, at about 12 noon, that the rest arrived. The track went through the bush for two hours, generally undulating and following the ridge, with a final steep climb to the summit. While John, Christine and Kath were waiting for the others to arrive, Alasdair and the two young boys arrived at the trig, so we were all able to be together at the trig. There was a view down to the Bay of Plenty from the trig, but not as extensive as the first trig. The track from Otawa Trig back to the girl guide camp was mostly steep downhill, but with no really tricky stretches. The one-and-a-half hour descent finished at the track leading to the former Te Puke water supply dam, and a further ten minutes walk along this vehicle track through several fords brought us back to the camp. We left the camp about 5:30pm to drive into Mt Maunganui where we met up with two friends from Tauranga. For our dinner we settled on the Bureta Park Motor Inn hotel at Otumoetai in Tauranga which served a 3-course smorgasbord for only $12-50. It was a very nice restaurant, with very delicious soup, mains and dessert. Afterwards we went back to Mt Maunganui where Paul, John and Jeff opted for a lovely night walk along the beach while the others went for a coffee in a cafe. This was followed by a soak in the saltwater pools. These pools were heated to the same temperature as other hot pools, but used filtered and chlorinated sea water instead of underground mineral waters. Later, when we returned to the camp, Paul and John saw a spectacular shooting star in the clear night sky. This looked like a sky-rocket firework lasting only a second or so, and would have been caused by a meteorite burning up as it entered the earth’s atmosphere. Just another unusual and interesting aspect of creation that God has given us to wonder and marvel at! Sunday After breakfast all of us except the two young boys took chairs outside into the sun to enjoy what Alasdair had to share with us. He took Luke 5:12-15, where Jesus healed a man then went out into a lonely place to pray, and said that we can get away for weekends, such as this one, where we can be amongst the beauty of God’s creation and heal ourselves of the busy-ness and stresses of the working week. John commented that he finds the Club is a good medicine for his stresses. Kath likened the Club to an extended family of fellow-Christians. Paul recalled how relaxing it was the night before just to walk the Mt Maunganui beach at night with the surf rolling in, and to see the spectacular shooting star as well. John then recalled a devotion shared by Marian Kilgour four years before from the summit of Whangapongakau on the West Okataina Walkway where such weekends and times away are likened to being on a mountain-top and we then have to descend back into the valley of our workday busy-ness and stresses. Paul replied that the mountain-top view is a vision of oureveryday life. The devotion finished with a time of prayer akin to a prayer-meeting where various problems borne by some of the group, such as physical sicknesses and family problems, were shared and prayed for. We then did a lovely walk to the old Te Puke water supply dam, about fifteen minutes along a vehicle track crossing many fords. The dam was a small, deep and lovely pond behind a concrete weir and fed by a tiny waterfall. The water was crystal-clear - that was until the two young boys started playing on the banks and caused it to become murky.

After lunch and pack up/clean up we had a quick look at the confidence course and outdoor chapel, just two minutes’ walk into the bush near the camp, then set out to visit one of the Tauranga friends for a lovely afternoon tea to finish the weekend off. We went off home to Auckland about 3pm, arriving back at The Bracken about 5:30pm.

COST: $57 (travel $32; food $7; accommodation $18); Dinner Saturday night $12-50; hot pools $2-50.