17 people went on a tramp into the Whitford Forest. The original intention was do a walk through to Brookby as the Club had done 15 years ago, but most of the forest was closed for harvesting and we could get permission only to do the northern part known as the Maraetai Forest. As there were not enough tracks in this part for a good day tramp, a portion of the new Beachlands to Maraetai walkway was added on to the beginning. We set out from the Te Puru Park carpark at 9:25am after two cars were left at the finish point on Okaroro Drive to bring drivers back to collect their cars afterwards. This concrete path, which also serves as a cycleway, went through the farmed Omana Regional Park and along the foreshore to come out at Maraetai beach and township. At 10:15am we had a break at a café on the main road opposite the wharf, not often does this happen on a club trip for the morning tea stop. We had coffee, eats and/or icecreams, and some of us had the joy of sharing our feed with the sparrows.

Half an hour later we were back on our feet again, walking up Rewa Rd and into the Maraetai Forest. The first part was a forest of gorse instead of pine trees, in its spring glory of yellow flowers. We climbed up to the Pukekawa summit which back in 2001 gave a view across to the Hauraki Gulf and McCallum’s Island, but since then the vegetation had grown higher. However we were able to enjoy views all around as the forestry road climbed up to the summit.

We had our lunch stop about midday at a shipping container that had been placed at the top as a marker sport for the various horseriding and mountainbike groups that use the forest. John shared devotions on three keys to getting an answered prayer based on Mark 11:22-26: (1) speak God's word (appropriate Bible verses) over the problem (2) expect the answer with no doubt whatsoever (3) forgive the ones who have hurt you or caused the problem.

Afterwards, about 12:45pm, we walked back the way we came for five minutes before taking a horse track going down to come out onto the Waiho Rd. Several planes flew overhead, as we were directly under the flight path of aircraft arriving from Aussie and other countries when the wind blows in from the west.

We came on to Waiho Rd about 1:10pm, and followed this out to farm land at the south edge of the Maraetai forest block. There was a short walk along a farm track that was muddy in places, and after passing an oxidation pond we came out to the end of Okaroro Drive at 2pm. Drivers were taken back to Te Puru Park to collect their cars, and the rest of us carried on walking to fill in time with only 10 minutes to wait till they arrived.

We had a lovely time despite the continuous strong westerly winds, and we had no rain other than a few spits. DISTANCE: 13.8km MAXIMUM SPEED: 4.4km/h AVERAGE SPEED: 9.4km/h COST: travel from The Bracken $6-50