One of a number of trips undertaken as part of the councils’ initiative was a tour (two actually) into the Belmont Hills north of Wellington city, normally limited to walking and mountain biking access, with the added bonus of seeing the sunset from an attractive high point.

Both trips followed much the same route, leaving from the road end at Stratton St on the Belmont Hills then on up gravel roads onto the Old Coach Road.

We left the Old Coach Road briefly to give the participants a taste of what 4WDs can do as we headed across some fields, following the marker poles from one of the walking routes as it dropped steeply down onto Hill Rd to re-join the Old Coast Road.

We then climbed to the ridge before dropping down a farm road to the bottom of the valley then up a very steep climb up the other side. A short run later we stopped on another ridge to see the route for the much publicised and somewhat controversial Transmission Gully highway.

After a brief talk on the scale of the work, it was back into the vehicles and back the way we came.

Back on the Old Coach Road we took a detour across the airfield (yes there is an operational top dressing airfield on the hills above the Hutt Valley) and past some old ammunition bunkers built at the start of the Second World War to support the now long-removed gun emplacements that lined the ridge.

Re-joining our inward route, we returned to Stratton St to access the track up to the Belmont Trig. We were able to drop our passengers about five minutes’ walk from the trig then park-up on the adjacent ridge.

Once the rangers had confirmed that all drivers had the same number of passengers that they started with it was a quick run back to Stratton St to drop everyone off at their cars, ending one of the most successful sunset trips I have done. 

To read the full story in the June 2016 issue of NZ4WD go to Zinio.com (May 23) or purchase your own hard copy at the Adrenalin store.