Baring Head

View from the old World War II bunkers

After a solid day of work it was off to explore Wellington's newest regional park at Baring Head. The park is the home to old World War II observation bunkers, and also to the Baring Head lighthouse which was first operated on 18 June 1935. Some nice trails on open farmland, with great views out into Cook Strait and the western Pacific Ocean.

The Old Pumphouse	Our trail guides for the day
The trail	At Para Trig
Baring Head lighthouse	Baring Head, rocks popular with local climbers

Butterfly Creek Nighttime Madness 2011

Heading up the first climb

After several days of heavy rain the track was the muddiest I had ever seen it. Not slippery clay like I was expecting, but a layer of wet slushy mud.

About 1km along the road at a pace that seemed far too fast, and then into the bush. The first climb was much as I had remembered it - calves burning, everybody walking and the climb seeming to go on for a long time. Lights could be seen in front of us, but also a long trail of lights behind us.

Having reached the top there was an initial steep downhill, and then on to a much more gradual easily runnable track. The field had thinned out by now; sometimes we were following other people, and sometimes I was the one out front... it seems a lot darker when not following anyone else! But the running was generally good.

The leg out to Butterfly Creek itself is an out-and-back. Each year a different object is placed at the turn around to ensure that competitors really do go all the way there. This year's object was a pink pillowcase.

We stopped for a couple of photos on the way down the Bus Barn track. Once we were out the bottom it was a good solid run back to the start/finish, and we passed several other pairs along the way. Final placing was 20th out of 32 mixed pairs, and 57th out of 84 total pairs.

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.

The Mountain That Wasn't: Mount Lowry

Northern Rata

Mt Lowry lies in a low range of hills behind Eastbourne on the eastern side of Wellington Harbour. The weather was forecast to be lovely and sunny, but with strong winds, so a walk in the hills (under the cover of bush) seemed like a good idea.

A steep climb from Ferry Rd to attain the ridgeline and then along to the Mt Lowry lookout. From the map it was apparent that this was not the summit of Mt Lowry, so I decided that on the way back we would do a small deviation and visit the true summit.

But before that we needed to push on and do what we were here to do: northwards to Wainuiomata Hill Rd. We reached the lookout over the road in 1h:42min. The posted time was 2h30min.

Back along the track we found a suitable spot for some lunch, and after that we returned to the Mt Lowry lookout. According to the map I expected to travel about 200m along a track to the south east, passing the junction with a track that dropped east into Wainuiomata. The summit itself should then be offtrack through the bush to the west.

James and Richard point at the pipe marking Mt Lowry

The map was wrong. There was no track junction, and once we had travelled the requisite amount of distance we discovered a small piece of pipe pointing up out of the track. From that point there was nowhere higher to go. We had found Mount Lowry, all 373m of it.

A few photos, then back down to the Ferry Rd track and the car, followed by gelato in Eastbourne.

Butterfly Creek Nighttime Madness

Competed in the walking version of this race with Jan. A moderately warm evening (perhaps about 11?). Jan hyperventilated on the hill up from Butterfly Creek, so we needed to stop for a while to let her recover. Having climbed the hill the walkers head straight down the Kowhai Street track, whereas the runners head further south (and climb some more) to the Bus Barn track. Finished in 1h:40m:10s, which placed as as 3^rd out of 10 mixed walking teams and 6^th out of 19 walking teams overall.

Butterfly Creek Nighttime Madness

9.75km up and down narrow, slippery, bush tracks at night in the middle of winter, with temperatures of about 2-3 degrees C. Great fun...

Given the fact that this is a night run through bush, this is a pairs event. I was running with Andrew Kerr (AK), a colleague from work. About 2 minutes before start, and AK finds that his borrowed headlamp isn't working. We tried fixing the electrical contacts with some medical tape I had on hand, but that didn't work. Never mind, AK also had a hand-held torch, so he would just have to use that. AS (that’s me) was trialing a high-tech Petzl 3-LED headlamp.

A short 1km through the streets and then into the bush to start the 300m of vertical climb up to the ridgeline. AS took the lead, but suffering the effects of a 3km cross-country race earlier that day, slowed to a walk several minutes up the switchbacks. Just near the top a couple of girls passed us, but they stopped at the top to wait for their third team mate. The ridge appeared in about 12 minutes, and from there it was straight into a downhill. AS stayed in front and warned of rocks, roots, and other trail obstacles. AK stayed behind and chatted with the girls.

After a few minutes the trail flattened out again and we were running through the bush towards the Butterfly Creek turn-off. We wound our way through trees, were careful not to trip on the various bridges, and tripped on the occasional unseen root or rock. The girls slipped further behind. The turnoff arrived after 35 minutes running time. When we reached the clearing at the Creek where there was an object to find on a tree ... none other than Mickey Mouse. We turned around, with AK taking the lead.

We made it back to the turnoff after 48 minutes. From here there was a steep climb back up to the ridge. 5 minutes and we had made it to the top. The track turned south along the ridge, and after perhaps 800m, started to descend. Somewhere along this stretch AK ran into a fallen tree. Those girls also caught up to us again – clearly much stronger hill climbers than us. The initial descent was steep and slippery, with AK providing great entertainment for all those following behind. The track then changed into a series of very sharp switchbacks. From the bottom it was along the road paralleling the beach, then a short section along the beach. After a short patch of indecision with not really knowing where we were, it was back on to the road for the last few hundred metres.

Back at the finish area (inside a hall) there were hot drinks, hot chips, a big screen TV showing the British Lions beating the Australians at the rugby test. AK had cut his knee when he ran into the fallen tree, and looked suitably gruesome with lots of blood running down his leg. We finished in 1:24:00. Not the fastest time of the day (not the slowest either), but we had a great time (and we beat those girls)!

Mt Lowry Challenge

A 12.75km bush mountain run in the hills above Eastbourne in Wellington.

The first 3.8km are on road, from Williams Park in Days Bay, north to Cheviot Rd, and up to the end of Cheviot Rd. From the end of Cheviot Rd the track climbs 1.8km to gain the Main Ridge track, and then turns south for 1.3km to reach the Mt Lowry lookout in 48m:52s. My legs were feeling fairly shattered on some of the climbs, so the downhill after the lookout was very welcome. Some of the downhill is quite steep though, and with roots thrown in can be hard to run. However, the most difficult is the spur that leads off the main ridge back down to Williams Park - this is very steep with fine, loose gravel. Eventually it was back down on to a wide flat gravel track for one last push to the finish. 1h:21m:28s for 24^th in open mens and 33^rd overall.