Trotters Gorge and North Peak (449m) – 16 February 2025
Seven of us left Oamaru and headed down to the Trotters Gorge reserve, where we met up with three more members.
We took the usual track up the valley past the Otago University hut with several creek crossings along the way, but no wet feet this time.
At the end of the maintained track we carried along a track that the club keeps clear from time to time until we got to the entrance of a track that the club maintains called Dave’s Track – named after at passed member of the club.
We have been maintaining Dave’s Track for many years now, but only have a clean up about once a year, so it was going to be interesting to see what it was like. The first half of the track was not too bad, but as we got further up there was a bit of gorse to push through and near the top it was pretty overgrown, with only the markers that I had put up during the last clean up showing the way out. So we will have to go back down at some stage and have another clean up.
Morning tea and a break were taken on the rocky outcrop where the track comes out. We then headed out on to the forestry road, where the coastal fog was coming and going. As we walked up the road the fog cleared to a very warm day.
After about 3km up the road we came to the North Peak cave which is just off the road. John Chetwin and I rediscovered the cave last November after it had been hidden in the forest for a number of years. The club had a photo taken in 1993 of club members by the cave before the trees grew up around it. Now that they have harvested the trees we were able to find it again, and hopefully it will not be lost again when they replant.
Also with the trees been harvested we were able to get up onto North Peak which has usually been hard to access, and not many of the club members had been up there. We had a leisurely lunch on North Peak in the heat with no breeze, taking in the view of the hills around us and the mountain in the distance, with the fog still lingering around the coast.
After lunch we retraced our steps back down on to the forestry road and down to just past South Peak, where we took another forestry road that follows a ridge before dropping steeply down an old fire break track back into the Trotters Gorge reserve.
We then retraced our steps back past the Otago University hut and the several creek crossings again back to the car park.
All up, we hiked 15.2 km in 6 hours and a total ascent of 289m.
Thanks to David, Julian, Rex, Lorena, Mary, Geoff, Robbie, Rodney, and Clare for the company for the day in very warm conditions.
Neville Corry
