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Reports......Workmans
to Mangatangi
Date: 19th July 2009
Leader: Robyn Lynch
After a very stormy Saturday night it was great to see 10 other
hardy souls turn up for the Sunday tramp, which was the only tramp
for the day. We headed off down the Southern Motorway taking the
Mangatawhiri turn off. This piece of road is now pretty deserted
since the new section of highway has been opened. It was sad to see
that the old castle at Mangatawhiri has a “for lease” sign hanging
in the window, with no sign of life. We then headed off down Kaiaua
Rd, turning off at Workman’s.
The weather was looking promising though the wind was very cold and
gusty and we were going to climb to reasonably exposed areas ! It
was a surprise to see others at the car park before us who we soon
found out were from the Hamilton Tramping Club and were doing the
same loop track that we were so we let them start off before us.
We headed up Workman’s track which is lovely regenerating bush
though it’s quite a climb. The track meets open pasture and we
eventually reached the end, for us, of this part of the track where
we would turn off and head down towards the dam face. The Workman’s
track continues on to the Whakatiwai Basin. After scouting around
for a spot out of the wind we stopped for morning tea. After morning
tea we headed towards what I believed was Mt Workman. There was
discussion as to whether this was actually Mt Workman as there is no
“true” trig on the top. There has been some recent excavation work
in the area with a wooden marker being placed and a metal-type
cylinder cemented into the ground which we believed may be a seismic
monitoring type system. It was disappointing that it was too windy
to have morning tea at this spot as the views are magnificent across
the Mangatangi Dam, south towards Huntly and eastwards to the
Coromandel Ranges.
After a quick look at the view we made our way down a four-wheel
drive type track to the dam face and Information Centre where we had
a brief loo stop and look around the Information Centre. At this
point one of the group decided she wasn’t feeling too good and
couldn’t face any more hills and would therefore take the road back
down to the car park. After another member volunteered to go with
her, which was really appreciated by all, the rest of us continued
across the dam face to the Mangatangi Hill Rd which we followed up
to the turn-off to the trig. On this section there were various
moans and groans as people became “hot” wanting a breeze to cool
them down.
It’s a pretty steep wee trek up to the trig from the road and it was
about time for lunch but because of the high winds and it being
pretty cold and exposed at this point we very briefly admired the
view before making our way on to the Mangatangi trig track, looking
for somewhere a bit more sheltered to stop for lunch. The Hamilton
group had already got the best sheltered spot so we wandered on a
bit further to find somewhere for lunch. Unfortunately we were in
the bush which was pretty cold so it was a very brief lunch. The
Mangatangi Trig Track is “undulating” for the majority of the track
with a fairly steep section at the end. There are lovely Kauri and
Beech trees which make most of it very pleasant walking. We made our
way down the track back to the car park, meeting one of the two who
had left us at the dam look out and who was pleased to see us and
make her way back to the car park with the rest of the group.
Personally I really enjoyed the day as the “gusty” winds blew away
the cobwebs and it was great to be outside after such horrible
weather.
Robyn Lynch
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