Oturehua

Greetings walkers and runners.

Well, we turned on a stunning autumnal day, blue skies and sunshine at Oturehua on Saturday after a frosty start to the morning. We had just one seat spare on the bus out, an older bus that struggled up over the Ophir hill, bringing back memories of old Billy the Bus.

The W3 walkers headed along the rail trail to investigate the Hayes Engineering area.

The W1 walkers and faster runners all headed up the hill behind Oturehua, before heading cross-country along North Rough Ridge.

The W1s managed to find the old mine, whilst the runners had trouble finding it, finding they had travelled past the mine. They also lost one of their runners who got separated but knew to head down the hill towards the traffic noise to find the rail trail.

Meantime the W2s and slower runners headed along the rail trail to the Golden Progress mine, before heading back along the hills to Oturehua.

All groups found lots of little gullies, usually quite damp at the bottom, and, if there was not good navigation going on, plenty of bushes to bash through. Perhaps that’s why I got a photo of a bee bumbling along.

Bumble.jpg