Mt Hawtrey

View across flowering rata of the harbour entrance.

There are two track systems in the northern part of the East Harbour Regional Park: the Mt Lowry tracks and the Butterfly Creek tracks. The relevant Regional Council publication shows these two systems connected by a "route" across Mt Hawtrey, and the "Vasque Extreme" edition of the Mt Lowry Challenge uses the same route. A traverse of the two track systems, taking in Mt Hawtrey, seemed in order...

Our route.

Rather than starting at the northern-most point being the carpark on Wainuiomata Hill Rd, we decided to start at the next track south - the Howard Rd track. This gave us slightly more distance and, as we had discovered one week prior, the short additional section to the Hill Rd was not particularly inspiring.

Up the Howard Rd track to the Main Ridge track and along to the Mt Lowry lookout. No deviation to the piece of pipe marking Mt Lowry this time. The track drops as it follows the main ridge to the Ferry Rd and Korimako Rd tracks.

We were expecting the route across Mt Hawtrey to be a little difficult to find, so we were watching fairly carefully after the Korimako Rd track to find the turnoff. We were also expecting the Mt Hawtrey route to be nothing more than a route, with some markings and little in the way of a track. It turns out that there is a big sign post to announce the route, it is better marked than the Main Ridge track, the track is clearly visible, and it has a better surface than a lot of the Main Ridge track. What a con!

The "route" was very clearly marked.

The Mt Hawtrey marker peg.

Mt Hawtrey (343m) turned out to be marked even more discretely than My Lowry (373m): instead of the metal pipe, this time there was a small wooden stake in the ground.

Some steep descents at the end of the Mt Hawtrey route brought us out on to the Butterfly Creek track. We followed it in to the Butterfly Creek picnic area, ate our lunch, and then exited the Park via the (southern-most) Bus Barn track.