I’m not recommending this track if you’re in a hurry. After a gentle enough start, it descends very steeply, and one is frequently lowering oneself to the next step below by hanging on to tree roots at eye level. However, I’m 68, 180cm, and 140 kg (blushes) at present, and I can tell you it’s manageable both ways, if you take your time and go carefully. ARC time 45 minutes. Fatman time, 68 minutes each way. In wet weather or after recent rain, I wouldn’t bother.

A full report and photos at http://wudhi.com/mrwalker/filter/filter%2001.htm.

As it is at present laid out, the Hillary Trail is not a viable option for the elderly and stout in the same way that, for example, the Heaphy or the St James Walkway, or even the Milford, can be seen as realistic multi-day tramping goals for a wide range of people.

One of the features of our Great Walks in New Zealand, (with the notable exception of Day One of the Waikaremoana Walk) is that they provide a safe and manageable corridor for a wide range of age groups through some challenging and dramatic countryside. Looking outwards from the tracks you can place yourself in the shoes of our earliest explorers. On the tracks you’re safer than you are on a trip to the corner dairy. And at the end of the day, there’s a hut and a mattress and a drinkable water supply.

Who in hell would want to walk day 4 on the Hillary Trail: 27km on a muggy Auckland summer day traipsing up the coastline with no shelter and no drinkable water en route, exposed to the sun, and with the major point of interest the horizon between here and Australia. Even chopping the last day in two with an extra campground scarcely does a lot to attract anybody outside the fit 18-25 year old bracket. Imagine taking a couple of kids on it, or your parents…

And there’s so much to do and see in the Waitaks besides paying close attention to where your next foot will be placed. (Hillary Trail booklet advice on negotiating Muir Track, at the end of another long day.) I have been so much looking forward to the idea that a multiday tramping experience was going to be available in the Waitaks that my disappointment with the Hillary Trail as it has emerged is profound.

Enter the concept of the Fathmandu Trail.

You’re in Auckland, and you’d like to spend a day or several days tramping.  Instead of a tent and sleeping gear and four days’ clothes and food, we’ll take a daypack with a decent lunch, and the normal emergency gear we’d have with us anyway. We’ll sleep in our own beds at night, or in a handy motel or backpackers if we’re from out of town, with showers and a decent evening meal and a bottle of wine.

What we will need for most walks is somebody to drop us off and pick us up at pre-arranged times, or two cars that we can arrange to leave at either end of the day’s walk.  The Waitaks are not, on the whole, geared for loop walking.  And through most of the Waitaks cellphone coverage is zero.

The Fathmandu Trail is a series of day walks over tracks that I have personally traversed in the last year or three. You can have a wander round my site for a photo record of most of these trips. There are no signs on the ground that you can follow: the trail is a concept. It will pay to visit the Arataki Visitors Centre and purchase an ARC map of the Waitakeres which sets out clearly all of the available tramping tracks, and is a good deal more up-to-date tham the Topographic series.

With a couple of exceptions, each day is about 10-12 km in length, and around 5-7 hours of fairly comfortable walking. While some of them take you through steep territory, all tracks are securely fenced where there’s a dropoff: you won’t fall off them.

In some cases, portions of track appear in more than one walk.  I do have my favourite tracks.

At this stage, all you’ll get is a track summary. Later, as I revisit all these old friends, I’ll update the photo record accordingly. Each day ends near the beginning of the next, but with your own transport you can do them in any order you want and as many as you want at any one time:

http://wudhi.com/mrwalker/fathmandu trail/index.htm

The recent practice in the USA of diverting peanut crops into the production of ethanol has meant that food grade peanuts have been scarcer and more expensive.  Likewise peanut oil.  Olive oil, grapeseed oil and rice bran oil are also somewhat more expensive than the bog standard canola and soy that provide the bulk of supermarket cooking oils.

Recent disturbing experience at a number of Asian food suppliers and supermarkets suggests we need to pay a little more attention when we buy these food oils.  What you will likely find is a container clearly labelled “Grapeseed Oil” or “Peanut Oil”, or “Olive Oil”, etc, and when you look at the (very) fine print list of ingredients on the back you will find, for example, “Grapeseed Oil, Vegetable Oil”.  In other words we are not getting pure grapeseed oil at all, or olive oil or peanut oil, but a blend that has been adulterated with God knows what. There is no indication in the large print that we are dealing with a blend.

Given that we are for whatever reason deliberately avoiding these generic “vegetable oils” when we elect to pay a little more for our olive or grapeseed or peanut oil etc, it is no good news to find that up to half of the more expensive product may consist of the very oils we are trying to avoid. (Convention rules that ingredients are listed in descending order.)

The message, as always, remains:  Check the fine print panel on your groceries!  You can still get the pure product, but you will need to pay attention.

http://wudhi.com/albums/norfolk%20november%2009/norfolk%202009%2001.htm

Check out http://wudhi.com/schnauzer%2006.htm

Just back from a week staying with Bonny at Norfolk Island. For a look at some of the walking tracks, check out http://wudhi.com/mrwalker/norfolk%20island/norfolk%20island%2001.htm for the first instalment.

A couple of days or so back, I experimented with my Dutch Oven Bread by substituting kefir for the water in the recipe.  I had to add a little extra to get the dough looking and feeling about right, and I set it to rise in the usual way.  It took about half as long again as the regular water-based version to rise properly, and I baked it at the regulation 210C.

The resulting loaf was a little more dense and a little softer in texture, with an excellent flavour.  The most significant change however was that three days after being baked, it was still “fresh” and palatable, where the water based version is beginning to dry a little by the end of the second day.

It’s a little more expensive to make than the usual recipe, but I’ll certainly come back to this when I’m baking for a trip away in the van.

In Sepember 2007, Mayor Michael Laws officially opened the walkway project, and it is ongoing

Who exactly are we sharing it with?

We park the van and hitch Alice to a lead, something she is not all that keen on with so much to explore that is new. Would we like to go tramping on a lead. Not really.

Peter volunteers to look after her while I do my stuff with the camera.

Looks like the Topp Twins have been here before us…

On the far side a number of small groynes are placed at right angles to the bank to prevent damage to the river bank. A pair of ducks has occupied one of them.

We reach the other side and head west. It’s a broad path, and one that we share with cyclists. This section is still very new and the new grass is roped off until it is a little more robust.

For all the apparent user-friendliness of the track, a small shrine is a reminder that we are living in an uncertain age.

Tania McKenzie was raped and murdered here in 2005. Her killer was sentenced to life imprisonment with a 19 year non-parole period.

In March of this year, the council approved a permanent bronze plaque to be placed at this site: (from the Wanganui Chronicle)

Council supports permanent memorial to Tania McKenzie – 17/03/2009

Mayor Michael Laws today announced that the Wanganui District Council has approved the placement of a permanent plaque in memory of the late Tania McKenzie.

“Wanganui was shocked by the brutal murder of Tania on her 20th birthday in 2005 and the council wants to support the McKenzie family in ensuring there is a permanent memorial to Tania,” Mayor Laws said.

“Tania’s family and friends have maintained an unofficial memorial to her on the Somme Parade riverbank near the Dublin Street Bridge and the council agrees that it is appropriate to place a permanent bronze plaque at that site.

“Many of us didn’t know Tania personally but the whole community recognises the terrible loss suffered by her family. I’m pleased to have been able to talk with Tania’s mum Naelene about the memorial and offer her the council’s support.”

At its meeting on Monday, the council approved the erection of a plaque with the following wording:

In loving memory of
Tania Rebecka McKenzie
7 January 1985 – 7 January 2005
“no shadow can extinguish her light”
loved daughter, granddaughter, sister & friend

It is a warm afternoon, but it suddenly feels a little colder.

There are some wonderful houses along here, and the roses are just perfect.

On the riverbank someone has been creative with the seating, but for all it’s beauty it lacks a certain functionality for buttocks such as mine, and no, you’re not going to get a photo. Perhaps it’s designed for canoodling.

Out one end and in the other, as the saying goes.

That’s a more effective looking seat. There has been a lot of care go into this project and it shows.

A concrete groyne hosts a gull.

We continue along beside the road.

Across the river, far up on the hill, an unusual design of house catches our attention. It occurs to me that the camera is sometimes better than a telescope for capturing distant information.

Across the road, a different kind of modern makes its statement.

Just along here, the walkway drops below the road and follows the riverbank more closely.

Over the way is an older house

with some marvellous examples of intricate colonial lace.

We continue beside the river towards the sea scout hall. A number of jetties host a variety of boats, and most of them send a clear message that the riverfront is not necessarily always the haunt of the righteous. It is a dramatic contrast to marinas around most of the country, where the piers leading out to the boats are accessible to all.

Another riverboat tells much the same story. Notice the long, narrow beam design.

A bronze plaque set into a large boulder commemorates the first European landing in the area. Question. What happens to plaques like this if the Minister gives the nod to Whanganui as the correct spelling?

A few yards further on, the information board for the river steamer, Waimarie, is already showing signs of the orthographic concerns that exercise many of the locals.

Perhaps this plaque on the City Bridge stonework is a trifle premature:

But I am getting ahead of myself.

This spot must have been in the old times a natural landing place: A few yards away from the rock commemorating the European arrival is another, in Maori.

We head down some steps by the sea cadet hall

(not much room for an H there…)

past the Waimarie

and along the boardwalk. It’s a pleasant afternoon. Up ahead you can see the City Bridge.

I’m a little puzzled about what prompted this river access. Unless, perhaps it’s for chidren who wish to paddle. It doesn’t seem geared to small boat access.

Alice thinks she has the answer. It’s for dogs, of course. Like everything else that DOC hasn’t assumed control of.

Well, that tastes a whole lot better than the river….

A few yards away, on one of the bridge supports, there are levels marking historic floods. So far, the 2004 floods have not made it to the list. Their brunt was borned by the Whangaehu in whose headwaters most of the rain occurred. Earlier, Peter had pointed out areas further south near Turakina where he had assisted in animal rescue at the time.

To the right you can see the beginning of the latest phase of riverbank protection, repairing damage done during the 2004 floods. During excavation for this a Maori midden was discovered, and work was called off while an archaeological team was called in to evaluate it. A local cartoon has them discovering amongst the shells and so forth a partially buried item that they cautiously identify as an H.

We head up towards the shops

and U-turn across the City Bridge.

Up to the left is the Durie Tower, a local tourist must-see, which somehow, I forego the pleasure of.

Hang a left at the end of the bridge.

It is spring, and for those seeking wildflowers, the river bank has them in profusion.

Also featuring along here and elsewhere is the ngaio, the native tree which, according to Maori legend, is the tree that you see upon the moon.

Here you can see the completed riverbank reinforcing, begun after the 2004 floods, to limit further damage.

Also featuring as part of the planting here and further on is a particularly vicious palm tree.

Why you would even consider planting these so close to a footpath beggars belief.

Closeup the problem is clearer. Civic administrations with any sense have been systematically removing these from public places for some time.

But I’m getting ahead of myself again. Across the road is a nod in the direction of our Pacifika heritage. There’s a story there, too, I’ll be bound.

We carry on between the river and the road for a bit,

and reach an area where public concern has demanded expression.

Not even a please ….

We turn off into the park where the palm trees hug the path. We follow a ridge, which presumably is some kind of protection from the river for the park to our right.

Beside the path, karaka is in flower

and to our right a massively-trunked camellia

A little further along, an oak tree and a totara provide one example of cultural co-existence.

We continue along the ridge

past an exotic playground for children

and back to the river

where Old Yaller greets us.

Where do they dispose of all those plastic baggies full of doggy doos?

When I grow up, I want to be a doggy doo collector. Yeah, right!

Come to think of it I could do with a Tui or tu right now.

and there up ahead is the Dublin St Bridge. Fatman time for the trip, a touch over 2 hours. A very pleasant stroll for a spring afternoon. Thank you Mayor Michael and Council.

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