Taieri Recreational Tramping Club

Grahams Bush botanical  and Mount Cargill history for background information.

See also Grahams Bush, Upper Junction, Brickhill Rd reports.

No. 19 on old hardcopy list of 113 club tramps. “Sawyers Bay – Grahams Bush. M Deuchrass. Summer.”

Sawyers Bay Road 28 km from car park; Mount Cargill Road car park: 25 km.

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18. 24/04/2024. Hikers. Graham’s Bush/Organ Pipes. Grade 3. 27 km. Leaders: Maria MacNee/Theresa White

A twenty-one strong group of hikers met at the rendezvous in Sawyer’s Bay at the Emmanuel Church Car Park. Continue Reading »

18. 27/03/2024. Trampers. Maori Peak and Split Rock.  Grade 3 Leaders: John and Dave

I’ve always regarded myself as, and indeed endeavoured to be, an optimist. But on Tuesday night, I had serious doubts that Wednesday’s tramp would proceed. That night seemed to leave little room for optimism. A Wednesday morning early dog walk gave a glimmer of hope, that the weather, although unpredictable, might be improving.  Seventeen ‘optimistic’ trampers took part on the Split Rock tramp.

29 km from car park.

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4. 21/02/2024. Hikers. Waihola/Milburn Area. Grade 2 Leaders: Bill and Jill

22 hikers assembled at a car park in Limeworks Road, Milburn on a rather grey morning with a cold head on sou’wester blowing into our faces. After traversing a farm track, we joined the Clutha Gold Trail in Circle Hill Road and began what Jill quite accurately described as a day of quirky bridges and old fossils!

Continue Reading »

No. 30 on old hardcopy list of 113 club tramps. “Woodside Glen to Maungatuas. E Blackburn, D McEwan. Summer”

Short and long options. (Maungatua climb fairly steep. 5-7 hours. Heavy tussock on top.  Route only. Manager: DOC.)

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18. 14/2/2024. Trampers. Maungatua Option. Leaders Lyn Keene, Anne Ward and Di Bezett

Travel Distance 40ks, Grade: 3.5, Altitude gain: 711 metres. Total distance: 15.64 ks.

The day dawned to reveal blue skies and temperatures were predicated to be between 28-29 degrees. Continue Reading »

Information
Rock and Pillar via Six Mile Creek This climbs 1,005 m. (3300 feet) up the eastern face from Glencreag Station up a leading ridge south of Six Mile Creek. This is the most direct approach.
Rock and Pillar via spur south of Lug Creek. Information: Climbs 910 m. (3000 feet) up the eastern face of a well-graded vehicle track up a leading spur south of Lug Creek. Average time to Leaning Lodge is 3 hours on foot.
DoC access. 9.5km north of the Middlemarch store on SH87, just before Lug Creek, is a farm entrance (RAPID 7219 – no DoC sign). A short way up the driveway is a DoC car park. There is public access up the vehicle track to the conservation area boundary. The track is now a recreation reserve administered by DoC.
Easiest route to Big Hut from Leaning Lodge (foot only – unmarked – good visibility essential) is another 45+ minutes climbing gently southwards to cross a steep gully and then climb a gentle shelf to above the eastern basins. Sidle several hundred metres past the lower prominent rock tors before gently descending to Big Hut once it becomes visible. Route very wind and cloud-prone. Ice axe and crampons may be necessary to traverse steep snow slopes near Leaning Lodge.
64 km to Middlemarch. 66 km to Stonehurst Track.
Redan Crater- contact for access Ken Rennick.

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13. 06/12/2023. Hikers. Sutton Salt Lake – Glencreag Track. Grade 2.5. $16. 60km. Leaders: Wendy Langley/Katrina McKenzie

17 of us headed to Sutton where we walked the Sutton Lake loop. Continue Reading »

3. 15/12/2021. Hindon. Blacksmiths Gully. Leaders Jill Reid, Sarah McCormack, Linda Partridge, Jan Butcher.

A reasonable day dawned for our combined Christmas visit to Hindon, and about 40 people headed up George King Memorial Drive to the hall.  We deposited our “plates”, wrapped up warmly, and drove to Don Graham’s gravesite on Ardachy Station.

Don loved this challenging country & he overlooks the hills and Taieri River.

The hikers walked a gentle track & enjoyed the spectacular scenery.

The trampers headed down the hill to Blacksmiths Gully, then looped back up to the cars – about 6 km.

Kevin Burke said Ian Fleming’s grace and we then enjoyed the generous pot luck lunch.

Chris Wither told us some Hindon Hall history & her various associations with it during her 38 years living at Hindon.  She mentioned how mice often visited during yoga classes……and yes, one brave mouse came under the door soon after!

We greatly enjoyed Grant Shackell playing his guitar and singing along with his “blind date” Claire Currie.

Thank you both for the wonderful entertainment, and to Jill Dodds and her helpers for organising the food etc.  A very pleasant way to wrap up our tramping year!

Jill Reid

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2/4/2014 Both. Hindon. Machine Creek. Recently Bathgate, now Cowley Farm. Easy+ Leaders: Ian, Ken

South of Lake Waihola in the region known as Waihola Gorge, a road branches off the Main South Road by the brick Ewing Phosphate Company building. At the end of this, a left-hand turn marked ‘Drivers Road. No Exit’ leads to this stable where Mr P J Heffernan, owner of Horseshoe Bush Estate since 1967 keeps his racehorses.
This stable, completed in 1884 with stone from the hill behind, took two years to build and consists of 12 stalls, 2 loose boxes, living quarters for two men, harness and storage rooms. The concrete floor laid over 18 inches of blue metal hammered into the swamp ground, the joinery by Mr Littlejohn of Milton and the masonry by Mr Lothian of Burnside are still in excellent condition; and the original spouting and Scotch iron roofing are still there. …
… It was built for Henry Driver who, born in the U.S.A. came to Otago as a youth from the Australian gold diggings. A merchant in Dunedin, he served on the first City Council and the Provincial Council and for a number of years was the member for Roslyn in the House of Representatives. …
… in 1884 he retired from public life. With the eye of a perfectionist, he supervised the completion of the stable and the area adjacent to it was divided into eight 22-acre paddocks with hawthorn hedges, each one with a heavy oregon gate with a number. …
… W H Valpy [when he] settled on the property in 1853, calling it ‘Horseshoe Bush’. …
… Another point of interest at ‘Horseshoe Bush’ is the ‘mound’, Waihola Gorge (now Clarendon) cemetery, which is on top of the knoll reached through a gate where the road marked Circle Hill joins the Clarendon-Berwick road. There are several unmarked graves, but names of several well-known families and people in the area can be read on the remaining tombstones. These include Yorston, Young, Bell, Fryer, Sinclair, Sutherland, Craigie, Donald McMaster, Rev. John McNicol and H B Flett. – “More Taieri Buildings” by Daphne Lemon, 1972.