The OTMC has been using the Rongomai Track since the 1950's and the more recent Honeycomb track since 1980. As both of these tracks head from Carey's Creek to Mountain Road, they make an ideal loop and completing the loop was the aim of today's day trip. We had followed
Careys Creek in January and today we started at the end point of that trip, Evansdale Glen. The Glen is a lovely, grassy picnic area with a couple of walking tracks for those wanting to explore further. Unfortunately for us, the start of the Carey's Creek walking track is on the other side of the creek and so it was wet feet right at the start for some of the 14 people on the trip.
The first 3-4km is a charming walk along the side of Carey's Creek with views of the slow flowing creek. There are a couple of creek crossings so those that kept dry feet at the start soon joined those who had wet feet. Being in the valley, it was cold but the pace was brisk and we started to warm up. Stopping in the sun by the Rongomai track to regroup, we took this opportunity for a snack and drink stop
We continued along the track beside Carey's Creek, sloshing through the mud and crossing the creek a number of times so that even the few who had managed to keep their feet dry this far, didn't have dry feet by the time we reached the Honeycomb track about 40 minutes past the Rongomai turn off. There is nothing easy about the Honeycomb Track as it is straight up, using both hands and feet to gain the ridge about 180m above the creek. Recent rain had made the track slippery in places so we were grateful to be going up as coming down would have been more of a mud slide. Taking our time, we all reached the ridge where the trees had thinned and we were rewarded with glimpses of the Carey's Creek area.
After another half hour of walking along the ridge we reached the junction of the 'nature walk' which is about a kilometre of sidling around the contour to join up with the Rongomai Track. As there is a large flat area at the junction we decided that this was a good spot for lunch. Everyone found a comfortable place to sit and enjoyed chatting while we ate. After lunch we followed the nature walk which I had never been on and found it a very pleasant
alternative to continuing climbing another100m up the Honeycomb Track
before joining the Rongomai Track at the top of the ridge. The nature walk involved a bit more up and down than I realised and included a short but steep down climb into a creek using a rope along with negotiating some tree fall over the track. The nature walk joins the Rongomai track on the edge of the pine planation.
The next part of the track involves descending 200m down the sharply defined ridge to Careys Creek. We had been down here before on
trip #18 and
trip #26 and like those previous trips down this ridge, we made good use of the well placed trees to help slow, an otherwise fast descent to the creek at the bottom. The final leg of the trip involves retracing our steps along the side of Carey's Creek and back through the creek crossings so if your feet had started to dry out, they were well and truly wet again by the time we reached the car park completing the 12.8km trip over 5.5 hours.
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