Trotters Gorge
Sunday 4 August 2024
This trip was meant to be a day of exploring our many tracks in the Trotters Gorge area, but with all the rain we had early in the week I had to go down on the Saturday and have a look to see what was available. The tracks in the valley weren’t too bad because they didn’t see the sun much and they were frozen over, but Trotter’s creek was up a bit so it was hard to keep the feet dry. I when up past the University hut to Dave’s track that the club maintains, but it looked a bit mucky, so that was off the list.
I then checked out the track up beside Arns Peak, but it was a bit overgrown with gorse, so I spent about an hour cutting and probably only got half way up so it was out too. I then went back down the track a bit until there is a track with a short steep climb up to a forestry road. This was the track I was thinking of coming back down on the Sunday trip, so I went up it a bit. It was a bit greasy but not too bad and it looked pretty clear, so this was going to be our track for the next day.
On the Sunday six of us meet in town and headed down to Trotters Gorge where we met Robbie. There was a good frost on the way down and it was still frozen at the car park like the day before. We headed up the valley, crossing the creek several times trying not to get wet feet, but that was a bit hard for some. We had a wee stop at the University hut before heading up to the start of the track with the short steep climb, with everyone wanting to get up the track to the sun and out of the frozen valley. We climbed up the steep track that wasn’t too bad, that then levelled out through a wee bit of gorse. We finally came out onto the forestry road and warm sun, so morning tea was taken.
After morning tea stop we carried on up the road for a couple of km. until we met the main forestry road, which we then went up to come to the base of South Peak. There are many good views to be had at the top of South Peak so we found the track up. We had to push through some gorse at the start but we soon found a good route up to the top. It was warm clear and calm on top with 360% views, so an early lunch was taken looking at the views.
There was a plan of maybe heading over to North Peak but Port Blakely, the forestry company, have been harvesting over that way and it didn’t look very inviting. So after a very leisurely lunch we retraced our steps back the same way we came.
It was a bit more slippery coming back down the steep bit but everyone negotiated it well and then it was just the walk back to the car park in the valley which was still frozen in places, and wet feet again. All up it was a very leisurely day over 13km travelled in about 5 ½ hours.
Thanks to everyone that came out for the enjoyable day and company.
John, David N, Jenny, Keith, Robbie and Shirley on her 1st trip with the club for a while.
Neville
