A Ruahine Roast: Te Atuaoparapara

A trip around a classic Ruahine route, where tramping took the backseat to some enthusiastic roasting.

“I drink these when I’m in the mood” Regan explained gesturing to a car door full of Sprite as I hopped into his overloaded station wagon. Before we could think more about that statement, Regan’s electronic Japanese girlfriend piped up, presumably to ask him not to share details of their relationship with the rest of us. Darkness descended as we cruised up the Kāpiti coast on our way towards the Ruahines. It would take us over three hours to reach where we were going, so we had plenty of time to explain the ‘lore’ of our tramping posse (aka the Wellington Outdoors Club) to newcomer Hugh. Much to the ire of Susie, Mat and Reganit became apparent that Hugh had also spent time living in Sweden, a topic I tortured the party with for the rest of the trip. Following the write-up of our trip to the Aorangi Range Susie was careful to watch what she was saying, lest she gave me any new roast material. That was until she happily declared that:

“I get Prince Andrew hands when I exercise”!

I’ll let the reader read whatever they want into that. We stopped at Burgerfuel in Paraparaumu for dinner. Leaving the carpark Regan almost got us hit by a car…