Date: 19th September 2010
Trip leader: Richard Barker
Trip report/photo: The Alburys
After a week of bad weather and a forecast of more on trip day, it was a pleasant surprise to have a sunny morning when we met opposite the Marsden Valley Cemetery. All the preliminaries were carried quickly and Richard told us that the Aniseed valley road was closed due to a slip and that we couldn’t get to the top of Mt Malita today due to poor road conditions, but there was a little play area that we could use at our lunch stop. This was the first trip for a couple of members, James for one (I’m sorry I didn’t get all of your names). I am sure they were expecting big things of this trip. There was also one guest.
At 9.35am 11 vehicles started off on what was to be a journey of epic proportions, if not of. (something’s missing? - ed.) The route that was planned was up the valley, through the quarry and up to the left to Jenkins Hill.
We made our way through the gates of the quarry and followed our intrepid leader until he missed a turn, he quickly realized this and soon had us in the right track to carry on up the hill. After following the zig-zag track up to the gate and cattle yards, for the next stage of the track we needed to space out a bit due to the clay and uneven surface of the track.
I was in the middle of the convoy and we were not to see the front runners for a wee while after this. After negotiating this track, in one of the few non-Toyotas on the trip, for a few minutes we heard that the Nissan behind us, driven by Paul, a guest for the day, was having troubles engaging 4wd and had only driven about 50 metres up the track before getting stuck on a strange angle. Unable to get an answer over the radio on whether we were needed to go back and tow him, we reversed all the way back to the misaligned Safari to find him in good hands and being assisted to a safe area for more attention. It was quickly determined that the Safari wasn’t going to be able to continue on this trip so the Safari was locked up and the occupants transferred to Dave’s Hilux for the day, personally I think this was prearranged by Paul to save on fuel costs. While all this was happening Richard had advised over the radio that he had to change a flat tyre due to a ripped out valvestem trying to get past a fallen tree. This may have been mentioned more than once over the radio.
Off we started on the hill again to catch up with the front runners and caught them parked up on a wet part of the track, where we stopped behind them, this was one of the last times I had any sort of traction that morning. From this point on it was a case of winch, tow and push to get vehicles through, on one particular stretch only about 4 vehicles made it through unassisted. With all the holdups and waiting, social groups were formed and lunches broken out early by some of the tail enders.
We finally made it to the top of Jenkins hill and it was only 1.30pm, 4 hours to travel 4 kms or so from the Cemetery. While we were up here Leo said that there was a house fire in such and such a street in Motueka, crikey I couldn’t even see the smoke yet he could pick out the street it was on, now that’s impressive, my eyesight really is getting worse with age. He shattered this illusion though when he told me that he knew the address of the fire from reading his pager he was wearing.
From here it was decided that we probably didn’t need to stop for lunch so off we went following the track along to Barnicoat, we then turned left and headed down towards the Roding Dam. Well down the hill we went and upon reaching the infamous gate and finding the key didn’t fit, back up the hill we trundled. At the top it was decided instead of going half way up Mt Malita, as planned, to just go to the Richmond Fire Lookout and have a cuppa and then head back to Marsden Valley.
We continued on our way playing follow the leader and stopping only for an obligatory photo stop above Stoke on the way, we made our way up to the fire lookout via a couple of fire breaks and then stopped for around 20 minutes while cameras and thermos flasks were produced and put to good use.
On the return leg we were entertained while Richard attempted a rather steep gnarly climb up a bank we had dropped down previously, he made a few (well 4 or 5 anyway) valiant attempts until finally successfully negotiating the obstacle, this was made more entertaining with the running commentary from John which, I’m sure, provided more incentive for “Bullet Proof” to keep trying. A few others attempted this obstacle but failed, Alan had a brave attempt in his little Jeep and attacked it with the grace of an angry duck with a missing leg, oh so close. It was then Miles decided to show us all how it was done and accomplished it first time, apparently yawning and checking for dirt under finger nails while driving up.
We finished off driving down off Barnicoat on the public track and the trip finished at the wooden bridge at the top of the Marsden Valley.
It was now that the long forgotten and abandoned Safari had to be retrieved so Dave, his passengers for the day and us went up to complete this simple task, or it would have been had someone taken the key to the gate that the Safari was parked on the other side of. This had been left unlocked for the recovery but obviously some Samaritan had locked it. We quickly rectified the situation and were able to retrieve the sad looking truck. We all got to the bottom were Richard was waiting and thanked him for a memorable day. As a reward for being polite he then asked me to write the trip report, bugger……. That’ll teach me to drive an Isuzu
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Past club trips 
