John took 18 of us to a lovely area of the Hunuas – Cossey’s and Wairoa dams. There was lovely bush and views of the dams through the trees.

This is a great area to go to when the Waitakeres are mud clogged in winter. Tracks here were very well maintained. It was a real pleasure walking here, fingers crossed we will continue to be able to when some of the tracks are closed to protect the kauris. On that topic we saw a family of black piglets on the Wairoa Cossey track – they seem to be an on- going problem in the ranges and are surely significant contributors to the spread of kauri disease as they fossick round the roots of mature trees in search of kauri snails. We did our bit as responsible trampers and used the boot spraying stations.

It was good to see a good turn out on day the day when daylight saving ended. Brian arrived at the bus just in time – because, he said, he was saving even  more daylight. Not sure about that, Brian! It did however seem a long time until lunch time ………..

Our group – the medium fast lot, started at the Hunua falls- and took time to admire them as usual, then on to the Wairoa Cossey track. Some of us added the Wairoa loop track at the end, which was very pretty. Others didn’t!

It was nice to see two youngsters out with the slower party – they were  in front for most of the day apparently. Well done, lads.

Only a select few enjoyed this lovely tramp- the others probably still recovering from a late night of watching rugby! It was also an earlier start than usual. There was the usual banter on the bus. It was noted that our intrepid leader, Osama Bin Elliot of the Chux headgear, had entered his emergency number in the book as 111……….. John was worried that, if we all sat on the same side of the bus we might become unbalanced, probably some of us already were.

Campbell organised perfect weather and a neat couple of trips for the day. Up the Vinings track to the Mangatangi trig – the perfect place for lunch. Then on to Mangatangi dam area through lovely bush, Helen pointed out that this was a place where kauri and beech grew together – as they did, magnificently.

Our longer group got out reasonably early so we carried on to the dam, and, as last time, were intrigued by the signs which caused some mirth and even funnier speculation. “KEEP OFF DAM FACE” We kept a keen lookout for further signs like, “KEEP OFF THE DAM GATE” or even “KEEP OFF THE DAM DAM” – but didn’t find any! We did however find a cottage with interesting interpretive material, all about the building of the dam which also is apparently stocked with fish. The cottage has a lovely sunny balcony to sit on – albeit briefly before we headed back down to the gate where Campbell picked us up.

Thanks, Campbell for organising a great day out.