Royal Standard Battery

Day 3 of the Christmas holiday and it was time to head off on another adventure. This time it was one that the wife was able to tag along.

We organised ourselves the night before so when we woke up we could leave straight away. The body is getting into holiday mode as we didn't leave Whangamata till 8am. It was a short drive to Quarry rd and by 8.30 we were ready to start the walk. The DOC sign said the whole loop would take us 3hr 30min so we were ready for a descant stroll, what we were not prepared for was the mud. This is only Chelsea's second hike so she was still in the 'try and dodge the mud' state of mind.

Seeing the new bridge made us both grateful as after the recent weather the river was a little high. If we had to use the ford we would had gotten very wet.

There was a lot of cool sights to see with cuttings for the old trains still clear and every now and again sections of rail tracks still visible. The glimpse of the stream and boulders kept us interested wondering what it must have been like working here back in 1890's.

We eventually came to a clearing that had another DOC sign - 10min to the battery and 30min each way to the waterfall. We decided to take the 10min direction as we thought the cache might be that close. Turns out it was at the waterfall so had to make the full 30min walk anyway. Glad we did however as there was so much to see. A fun tunnel to walk through, making our shoes wet through, mines to search, swing bridge to walk and waterfall to view.

Clearly collecting the cache here was high on the priority list and I searched the whole length of the tunnel, finding many cave wetas before eventually finding it only 3m from the entrance.

With the cache found and a snack had we decided to complete the loop track. We left the tunnel and crossed the swing bridge. turning right we headed up the hill and begun to wonder if we were on the right track. It kept going further from the car and climbing. Thankfully it eventually turned and headed back down stream, and by down I mean down. It was a very slippery slope down and I was impressed that the wife stayed on her feet.

Glad we completed the loop as it was a pleasant walk and we were back at the car at 12 so it took us about 3hr total. A real fun day out and well worth the walk. Now heading back to Whangamata for lunch and a swim.