Sumner — Godley Head 

Saturday 3 May 2025

The day dawned clear and frosty in town, after a miserable, wet week. I had difficulty parking near our meeting place, Scarborough clock-tower, as I had not realised that Park Run was happening. Helen was the only other person who turned up for the trip, so we decided to change the route and head towards Taylors Mistake, then up the Taylors Escape bike track, rather than do the longer route via Godley Head. The track was quite wet underfoot, with a few really muddy patches. At Taylors Mistake we saw a surprising number of people—probably surfers out to catch some of the big swells that the storm had been generating. We sat on the beach for “morning tea,” and watched the lifeguards doing some boat-launching exercises in the surf. The gentle zig-zag climb got us to the Summit Road and Crater Rim walkway. At the top, a guy in an old camper-bus offered to take our photo. He was spending the year travelling around the country, and told us he had just recently ridden the Old Ghost Rd with his little dog sitting inside the top of his back-pack!