Day hike to Mt McKerrow summit
It’s been a while since we did Mt McKerrow track, but now it would be shame to keep this track just to ourselves as it is conveniently close to Wellington and it’s perfect for a shorter day trip.
The climb to Mt Mckerrow starts from Catchpool Valley or Wainuiomata. As we’d already done that part of the track from Catchpool Valley side before, we decided to leave our car in Wainuiomata and start the track from there.
The weather wasn’t really impressive that day with a typical Wellingtonian gale, so we appreciated the track path ran through the forest which protected us from being blown away. On the other hand, it prevented from any good views.
The first half of the track was quite steep, but once we reached the top of the hill and walked along the ridge, the only difficulty was roots and a bit of mud. Moreover, if there was no sign – an iron pole – we would miss the Mt McKerrow summit at all.
Occasionally, where trees became sparse, there were some good views of Wellington Harbour and East Regional Park on one side and Rimutaka Range on the other.
On the way back, we decided to turn down to the Boys Brigade camp to avoid returning along the same path to the car-park. However, the track was a bit rough and not really comfortable, especially when it connected to a slippery 4WD road.
We finished the track within about 5 hours, including a short wrong turn-off, which made it a nice Saturday afternoon walk. Just next time, we definitely need more water as during that initial climb you get quite sweaty.