I went on the first walk with the tramping club last Sunday. It was great to get out and about with them, as it has been a long time.
We went to TECT Park between Tauranga and Rotorua. It is a huge hunk of land (1650 hectares, which is just over 4077 acres). It was bought by the Western Bay of Plenty and Tauranga Councils in 2004. The name is taken from a naming rights sponsor, the Tauranga Energy Consumer Trust. There are lots of activities to do there. They have mountain bike, walking and horses riding tracks. A high wire adventure walk (we didn't do that). There is also a shooting range, paint ball and radio controlled aeroplanes. I had never heard of it. It is a great asset for Tauranga.
We enjoyed our day there. The track markings leave a lot to be desired, so we had a bit of fun working out where we were at times.
The first area we walked through was part of the Matariki Tu Rakau project. It is a national project to establish stands of trees across New Zealand as places to honour New Zealand heroes. The ones at Tauranga were planted by the Lions and volunteers in spring 2021 to honour Lions nationally and globally. 1000 trees were provided by New Zealand forest service as part of the billion trees programme. The trees are quite small now, but it will be a wonderful area when they have grown. There is a pest eradication programme in place too.
. Another of the tracks we followed was to the lost tank. There was no explanation as to why it was lost and we found it quite easily. Sort of. We went past a track and thought that was where we would come out, so we set off up the road, that went up a quite steep hill. That's the first bit of hill I had climbed in a while and I was soon puffing. Eventually it was decided that it wasn't a loop at all and we went back down. We met a father and son mountain bikers going up. It looked like jolly hard work to me. I suppose they were enjoying themselves, she said doubtfully. We walked along the track for a while and, quite by chance we found the sign to the lost tank (remember that. Sorry it was a while ago since I mentioned it). The sign was on a post, with all the information facing away from the track. Did I mention some signage left a bit to be desired? Anyway there it was large as life, looking just like a water tank. I have looked on the website for more information, but couldn't find any.
There are a lot of pine trees that are part of a forest owned by forestry companies.
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| A view from the track |
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