Mt Grey - Red Beech Track

Saturday 21 Sept

Our seven set off with a blue sky and good forecast for the day. After a trip along some North Canterbury back roads and a rough forestry road, we arrived at the Mt Grey car park. The DoC website warns that if the water is flowing over the ford, the river would be too dangerous to cross upstream. The ford is now just large lumps of concrete scattered downstream, so no longer a problem.

We took the advised track on the true-left of the Grey River to the summit. Muddy at first, it soon became a firm, dry track through beech forest. We reached the summit at about 11.30 and were soon joined by two families and a girl with her border collie dog. Great views out towards the sea and Amberley were had. We pushed on, along the ridge and into the bush to find a spot for lunch, out of the cool sea breeze.

After lunch the track straddled a couple of high points and slowly descended a ridge, and we reached the first river crossing at about 2pm. From there the track meandered up and down beside the river, although from a lookout we passed, we could see we were quite high above the river. Shortly before reaching the car-park we checked out the trapper’s hut which has seen better days. One final river crossing, where there was once a ford, and we were at the cars. Judging by the comments we had one bunch of satisfied trampers.

We were: Graeme Nichols (leader), Mary McKeown, Kathryn Marshall, Ian Beale, Eileen Mackie, Joy Schroeder and John Robinson.    GN