This trip lead by Scotty and helped by Trevor and Del (locals) was excellent.

Spread over 3 days, there are several trip reports below

Trip photos

TRIP REPORT FOR:
REEFTON WEEKEND - DAY 1
By Lurch

A long night on Friday of travelling then a few yams catching up with the other earlybirds at the campground. Just right to warm us up for the weekend.
Saturday morning started fairly early for me. Don and I had a yarn while we waited for the others to get up, and help us with the sandflies.
Everyone that wasn't there already, slowly trickled into the camp right up until the start time of 10am. Scotty held everyone back and delayed the start, just for a few of the more important people who turned up late. It was decided to split the group in two, with a local, Trev, helping lead the other group and the little green turtle heading our day.
We headed up Slab Creek Hut with everyone having a challenge on this hill. Our beloved editor had the misfortune of confidence loss and his newly shod PJ used the auto pilot to climb this track. Unbeknown to anyone but this hill was also to be the beginning of the secretaries ego boost. To Yumi's disgust Nigel bought a winch instead of a stereo for their new wagon, but I'm sure Don is grateful of your choice Nigel.
Shortly after we begin to move on there was a call on the radio, "we need to stop, my tyre is going flat", and after a quick tyre changing and bead clearing their wheel was back on and the group headed on.
Our lunch stop today was down the Green Hut Track. This track is very scenic with a few wee creek crossings along the way. My lunch was disturbed by a small hiss from one tyre. Good thing we had a practise at the tyre change earlier.

Following a quick lunch in the shade, we made our way along the main track to the top of Petrol Hill and one by one we dropped our way down the slope and ledges. The river bed on the way out from here was everyone’s favourite, with plenty of comments later, even from those with coil springs and comfy wagons.
While everyone was choosing whether to take another track or go back to camp. My little ute made up our minds by the signal of a large bang and shudder.

After driving back to camp in front wheel drive. It was decided that the wheel was to be removed as was the hub, but alas the axle remained in the tube, broken! Only in a small town could you drive around and gather up the parts to fix a major problem. Parts found for a couple of dozen beers. Early start tomorrow will see the Hilux running again.
More important now was filling the tank, (mine), off for tea and some yarns at the pub.

On Saturday, another group made their way up to Big River
Trip report from Brent

A beautiful sunny morning greeted us at Reefton on the first day.  After we coated ourselves in insect repellent and having breakfast, we all assembled for the morning meeting.
It was decided we would do the trip to Big River, led by Kevin Page.
The trip took us along a narrow road through native bush, we passed a site of an old hotel called Merrijigs, strange place for a pub but they were the old days.  We had a couple of stops on the way to look at some mine entrances, and the remains of a small stamping machine.
The trip was made more enjoyable with the company of Del who knew a lot of history in the area, and could tell us how the machinery worked.
There isn’t a lot to see at big River and was hard to imagine a whole township of over 800 people used to live here.
After a bite of lunch Kevin told us some stories about previous trips he had been on, then we examined the remains of the ten head stamping machine, that was used for crushing the quartz, there is still four big tanks there that had cyanide in to extract the gold, then we headed up the road to look at the massive winch and boiler which doc have rehoused and restored.  The amount of work involved getting the machinery in there must have taken months.  We decided to walk to the Poppet but after fifteen minutes, we realised we were heading up to the sawmill.
We returned to the vehicles and made our way back to Reefton, stopping on the way for a cuppa.  Arriving back at the camp, we rewarded ourselves with a nice cold beer and a shower.

Thanks Kevin and Del … was a good day !

Brent and Sandra

All meeting at the camp at 9 o’clock on Monday for a half day trip up Napoleon’s Hill and through Waipunia Caves.

My brother and I got up at 8.30 and found out that we could not leave our gear in the cabin, that we had to take it with us on the trip. Fifteen minutes later, after packing our gear, we found out that we could leave our gear in a tent and pick it up on the way back home. After we finished unpacking, it was time to go. So much for breakfast!

We headed off to Napoleon’s Hill about a 25-minute drive out of Reefton. Scotty stopped to wait for everyone to catch up and find out which way everyone wanted to go up the hill: track one- carry on the same road (the easy way- a few chose this option); track two- take a left and keep going along that track (the mediocre way- the option that most people took); or track three- Subaru Hill (the hard way). Scotty, Lurch and myself went up Subaru Hill. After a little talking and hassling Scotty about how he had rolled his Rocky on the same track the year before, we all went up with mainly no problems- apart from a few small dents that I put in my Suzuki- or so I thought. Lurch had a problem with his diff, so it was now time to have an early lunch until it was sorted out what they wanted to do. It was decided that they would leave it in rear wheel drive because the rest of the trip was down hill and most probably didn’t need 4WD.

I jumped into Scotty’s Rocky and let Ben, my brother, drove the Suzuki down Napoleon’s Hill and through the Waipuna Caves. I was getting sick of the ride in my Suzuki.

It is a very different experience and if you have not done the trip I recommend that you should do it.