Kuripapango Campsite, Taranaki Anniversary Weekend 2022

Friday 11th March Finer's, Linns, Guts, Barkla's and Fleming's in motor homes, and Alan Rogers with his tent headed for Kuripapango DoC camp in the Kaweka Forest Park.

We arrived in glorious sunshine, explored the camp and dipped our toes in the Ngaruroro River which bounds the camp before declaring the sun was possibly over the yard arm and happy hour (or two) began. But darkness falls pretty early now so it was a reasonably early night.

At 8 am  Saturday morning Alan, Jim, Werner and Al set off to climb to Kuripapango Trig and beyond. A bit later Alistair and Dorothy, Marilyn Jan and Yolanda set off for a shorter walk to the first river crossing on the Cameron Hut Track, viewing the cableway and Water level gauge.  We left John and Irene in charge of the camp. The climbers had a swim on return, and we all chilled out for the remainder of the afternoon.

Sunday morning we awoke to a grey and drizzly morning. However Jim had left his favourite top on the hill, so Jim, Al, Alan and Werner headed back to the trig on the alternate route via The Lakes. Marilyn, Alistair, Dorothy, Yolanda and Jan walked up the road to the Historic Robson Lodge, built in 1904 by David Lumsden who was farming the area, and lived in by Morris Robson, forest ranger and his wife Coral for a decade. The afternoon was spent reading and playing games, and the weather improved in time for happy hour. 

On Monday morning most of us returned home via Napier. Unfortunately Al and Irene broke down at Onga Onga and had to call a transporter and rental car to get home. Our inaugural camper tramper weekend was a huge success.

Thanks Alistair for the great photos.

Jan Fleming