Pinchgut – Wooded Gully

Saturday 1 May 2021

Seven in two cars went to the Okuku Ford end where Wendy’s car stayed and John drove Kerry’s car to Mt Thomas’ Wooded Gully car park where he, Wendy and Kim were to walk from. Mary, Dan, Wang and Kerry set off at 9:20 for a chilly fording of the Okuku River and along Pinchgut Track to reach Pinchgut Hut at 11:50. The foursome headed up the Whare Track, enjoying a mixture of forest and tussock clearings on a clear sunny day. They chose a sunny lunch stop before the track disappeared into cool, low forest.

Soon after lunch the seven met for a brief reunion and vital handover of car keys. At a high vantage-point the four stopped for a snack break and could see Mt Thomas about 1km away. As they planned to go down the Wooded Gully Track, Mt T was not on their path. Wooded Gully Track gave the four a long descent to a forest road at a chilly time of day. They reached their car at 5:20, twenty minutes after John and company arrived at the Okuku River end. Wang’s technology told us we’d walked over 17km. Back in Chch he sent each of us a very clever flyover view of the walk, produced by an app called Relive.

We were: Kim Ashmore, Wendy McCaughan, John Robinson, Mary McKeown, Shiping Wang, Dan Pryce and Kerry Moore (KM)

The reunion on Whare Track

The four leave beech forest and head towards the pines

Looking back