Pureora Trip - October 2011

11pm alarm wakes me up, so breakfast and a hot cuppa and in the work car and set off to Wrack Auto, to cruise to net and wait for Mark, Rodney and Kay.  After a few hours they all arrived, so with the finishing of the coffees and a quick nosey on you tube we set off in the rising sun (about 2am).  Rodney flew off like a cold cat on a hot roof, with myself and Mark in his smoke.
 Once I had the rubber band wound up we were traveling fine, till the Brynderwyns 30kph up hill and down the other side with a slow decent, to catch up with Rodney at the bottom with a rather hot we motor so with a bit of cool water and time we set off again heading to the big smoke of Tokoroa where we were to meet up with Paul. Travel down the country was good, not a lot of traffic and Auckland was good for a change only a little traffic but otherwise was good, pulling into Cambridge for some jungle juice for the truck and some lollies and a bite to eat.

Onwards to Tokoroa were we collected Paul and a ton of food, then around to John’s place to leave Pauls car behind and off to Pureora to start our week away.

Found the right track and unloaded the buggys from the trailers and loaded up the junk and stuff, and set off up the track to find some choice little holes that Mark seemed to like sitting in for some reason; first little sticky bit, so seeing I had a good winch (purchased from Wrack Auto) Mark hooked up to a tree and with a bit of yahoo and swearing it pop me out, then we did a bit of diggy diggy and Mark, Rodney & Kay were up and we headed off to the next piece, lots of humps and bumps with sticky bits as there was a light shower hanging around which I thought it might set in and hang around for the week. Mark again fell into a wee hole so with a lift and a tug (the truck not Mark) Rodney pulled him out.

After this we met the Tok boys heading out with some wounded trucks, so after so more diggy diggy we carried on and found more trucks heading out with broken trucks so after a quick chat we inspected the next hazard, with a few long funny looks and with the track being about 2m deep diff marks from trucks running 38” tyres we decided to turn around and find somewhere to set camp.

Camp on the corner of the track traps, buggys and tents we were sorted a feed and somewhere to sleep, with Rodney sawing several logs as the morning approached. Up, breakfast, pull down camp; with this we decided that it would be better to leave the gear in the tow trucks and just do day trips from a base camp so that was the mission we set for the day.

Day 2 we set off after breakfast to unload the buggys and lighten the load. Rodney led us out back to the tow trucks, quick unload and set off the road to a pumice pit where Mark, Kay and Rodney had a tuttoo on some little hazards for a bit, then up the main road looking for another track to explore.

Rodney drove past a couple of overgrown tracks to find one we had done the year before, which was a good little track till there was no track as a wash out had removed most of it. So more diggy diggy and we had a state highway crossing (thanks to Paul) almost had white lines if only we had the paint.

Rodney made it look easy over the other side to stop and have some lunch after a long diggy diggy. We were all refreshed and ready for the next bit.

Now for the rest of the trip you will have to watch the videos that Rodney has...

Cheers and thanks to: Paul, Mark, Rodney and Kay for a great weekend.

- Brett