A group of 8 had a lovely time walking the Montana Heritage Trail in the Waitakere Ranges today in nice sunny weather. We set out from the Cascades carpark at 9:20am and walked over a footbrush and wet pad to clean our boots of any kauri dieback. After a short while on the Auckland City Walk we went on to Anderson Track, which is part of the Edmund Hillary Trail. This was quite a grunt, but the track was stepped most of the climb. Once at the top we took a side track down to the Waitakere Tramline where it comes out of the long tunnel connecting it with the Swanson filter station. Up until a few years ago trains would go through this tunnel and up the line to Waitakere Dam, but the spoilsport Mr Osh put a stop to this and the trains are now languishing as homes for spiders, insects and birds. We had our morning tea break at the old picnic shelter at 10:45am. The once-mowed lawn was now quite high, and the rail tracks were also covered in weeds. After about 20 minutes we carried on, going through a tunnel and under a culvert carrying the Kelly Stream, and looking out across to the face of the Waitakere Dam. Eventually we left the tramline to climb up to the top of the dam and view the reservoir. Most of us chose to follow a track going down to the top of the waterfall below the dam and up to the other end rather than cross the top of the dam itself.

From there we went onto the Fenceline Track and after a few minutes we came to our lunch stop at 11:45am, an open grass area over a weir on the western shore of the reservoir. Here we had our devotions, where John presented 10 interesting thoughts about Christmas: 1.  A normal person celebrates their birthday over one day, but Christ has His over 6 weeks, being all the Christmas celebrations such as carol singing, Santa parades, light shows and services. 2.  The real NZ Christmas story is that of Samuel Marsden preaching his first sermon on Christmas Day 1814, bringing the gospel of Jesus Christ to the Maori people and establishing the Christian church in our country. 3.  A full moon on Christmas Day means an early Easter. 4.  Looking at Christmas lights at night is an act of worship admiring the beauty of God's creation and the God-given creative ability of the people who put them together. 5.  The practice of giving presents comes from the gifts of the Three Wise Men, but is now overcommercialised. Many grown-ups flog off unwanted presents, or give them away. Making presents instead of buying them not only saves Money but is an expression of your God-given creativity. 6.  Christmas is usually a family celebration, aq reflection of how we Christian believers are part of one big family - God is our Dad, Jesus being God's Son is a Brother, the Holy Spirit is the Mother-heart, and we are all brothers and sisters in Christ. 7.  Christ is described as Wonderful Counsellor. Wonder is an astounding thing causing a feeling of intense amazement. A counsellor is one who speaks and urges directions of actions or thought, and this is what He does. 8.  On Christmas Day during World War II, the Allied soldiers would sit down and enjoy the day with the Nazi enemy soldiers. It is a shame that this lasted only that one day - Christ commands us to love our enemies at all times, and settle differences by sitting down instead of fighting. 9.  Many Christian people never like to write Christmas as Xmas as X often means crossed out or marks wrong answers in a student's school work - even though this came in the 16th century from the Greek word Xpiotoc meaning Christ. 10.  Trivia about Christmas songs: Try to substitute God for Santa in Santa Claus Is Coming To Town; Hark The Herald Angels Sing is written by Mendelssohn best known for his Wedding March; O Holy Night is written by Adoplhe Adam who wrote the Giselle ballet music; the melody of Silent Night was written in a hurry for a Christmas Eve service in 1818 when the organ broke down and a guitar had to be used.

Soon after we continued our tramp along Fenceline Track at 12:30pm we saw Christine McDonald. She was to have come with us, but didn't turn up on time, so she did this tramp in the opposite direction with a friend. We gave them copies of the devotions. Eventually the track climbed up to come out on Long Road Track, which we followed to Upper Kauri Track and our final descent. This track was boardwalked in places, and some of us sang Christmas carols and other songs as we tramped. At one place we stopped to sing as a choir the first verse of How Great Thou Art. We came out at the carpark about 2:45pm, and on our way home we stopped for icecreams at the old Swanson railway station cafe.

DISTANCE: 11.5km AVERAGE SPEED INCLUDING STOPS: 2.1km/h MAXIMUM SPEED: 4.9km/h COST: travel from The Bracken $5