Dannevirke: Club's roots in demand

Members of the Heretaunga Tramping Club on Armstrong Saddle, named after Akitio's Hamish Armstrong, who crashed while flying his Gypsy Moth from the coastal Tararua settlement to Hastings on July 21, 1935. Photo / Supplied

Last Tuesday's Dannevirke News described how Hamish Armstrong became lost while flying his De Havilland Gypsy Moth from his Akitio farm to the Hastings aerodrome on July 21, 1935.

A fortnight after the incident a group of three trampers were traversing the tops of the Ruahine Range near the present Sunrise Hut, looking for potential areas for skiing, when they came upon the Gypsy Moth at rest in what is now known as Armstrong Saddle.

That same group of trampers, former members of Wellington area tramping clubs, took part in the very extensive, but unsuccessful, search for Armstrong which followed the discovery of his plane. It appears most likely that he had mistakenly headed west into the vast wilderness of the Ruahine Range.

The tragedy brought home to local trampers the need for some form of organisation which would be available at short notice to mount searches and rescues in the mountains of Hawke's Bay.

And so the Heretaunga Tramping Club was born. On September 30, 1935, 16 trampers assembled in Doctor David Bathgate's rooms in Hastings and made the decision to form a tramping club, the objective of which was to familiarise members with the back country of Hawke's Bay.

It was the need for a rapid response search organisation which prompted the formation of the club and land search and rescue has been one of the club's primary roles during its 80-year history.

Working with the police, members have taken part in countless searches and recovery incidents in the hills of Hawke's Bay. In the days before helicopters and effective radio communications, a search and rescue operation was an extremely arduous physical operation demanding the ultimate in fitness and experience of the searchers.

Since the day Hamish Armstrong walked away from Armstrong Saddle, never to be seen again, only two people lost in the Hawke's Bay bush have not been found.

In the 80 years since that day members of the club have tramped far and wide, to every corner of the mountains of New Zealand and from Mount Everest to the Antarctic.

Back in 1935 though, their immediate task was to build huts to provide shelter for club members and for other mountain users in the back country of Hawke's Bay. The first was Kaweka Hut, on the eastern flanks of the Kaweka Range.

This beech timber, malthoid and corrugated iron hut was sited near a tributary of the Tutaekuri River, at a sufficient distance from the Napier/Taihape Rd to be reached after Saturday mid-day closing.

The Waikamaka Hut followed, completed during the first year of the war on the western side of the Waipawa Saddle, in the Ruahine Range. Kiwi Saddle Hut was built in the Kawekas in 1948 and in the 1970s the club assumed ownership of Howlett's Hut, high in the Ruahine Ranges.

The Kaweka Hut burned down 20 years ago but the others have been continually maintained and upgraded and have provided very welcome shelter to thousands of weary trampers and hunters over the years. The club will shortly be unveiling a memorial at the recently-renovated Kiwi Saddle Hut to Nancy Tanner, one of the women members who carried the club through the war years.

But primarily the club sets out to provide an opportunity for everyone who enjoys the hills and the bush to do so in the companionship of others and in safety.

In addition to the fortnightly trips into the hills the club has now embraced mid-week tramping and cycling, both of which attract support from the large community of active older people.

-The programme of forthcoming trips can be seen on the club's website www.htc.org.nz

Famous members

The Heretaunga Tramping Club is one of Hawke's Bay's longest-running recreational clubs.

Many well-known local families, including the Tanners, von Dadelzens, Latteys and Berrys, have been involved. But it's member George Lowe who is one of the most famous. He was a member of the 1935 Mt Everest expedition during which his friend Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay became the first to summit the world's highest peak.