Kohinga / Bonny Mary

Kohinga is a summit I have climbed once before – when we were trialing different radio repeater sites for the Kaweka Challenge mountain marathon. The marathon doesn’t exist anymore but the mountain is still there. I contacted the forestry and the manager gave me permission to enter. Based on this and previous conversations he seems happy provided its outside of the roar and the fire risk is low. However I couldn’t take my vehicle in. O well a walk it is.

I planned to do 2 summits in one walk (see also Burns Range in the blog) which meant I needed to plan my route. In the past I had driven to the end of Kohinga Road to access the summit and there is an unmaintained track from there to the summit. However this wasn’t the best option today. I entered from Burns Road gateway and walked to where the 4wd track is marked on the topo map. News flash – there is no 4wd track between Burns Rd and the walking track head. Essentially it was a 120 m vert bushbash up the hill. The start was tricky as the forestry thinned so there were fallen limbs and trees to navigate over or around. Once into the bush there are hunting and animal tracks up the spur to where the 4wd track (actually now a fully formed forestry metal road) and the track meet. The track was tricky to find but it carries on straight off the end of the road and slightly to the right. Follow the white ribbons in the bush. Its easy to loose the trail in places but keep the summit in sight and you cant go wrong. That’s not true you can – but don’t. You arrive at a clearing at the base of the final assent – you are probably following pegs by this point. Head straight up the clearing and to the right to get on the spine of the ridge and head to the top where you will find the trig. The rest of this journey (to Burns Ridge) will be continued in the next blog entry.

From the top there are good views back into town past Miroroa (Cattle Hill). I managed to work 10 stations on 7 MHz and one on 144 MHz SSB.

Details

Summit – Kohinga ZL1/HB-054

Height – 1009 mASL (climb 250 – 400)

Access – Either via Burns Rd (250m climb but some bashing) or Kohinga Rd (400m climb forestry road)

Nominal time to summit – 1.5 hours

Mobile and internet coverage from the summit – Good coverage into Spark, 670 and 725

Summit Marker – Trig

Land Access Permission – Forestry access permission required.

NB: PHOTOS NOT FOR USE ELSEWHERE WITHOUT PRIOR PERMISSION