TACKLING THE NEILL-WINCHCOMBE
MAPS SHOW IT AS ‘NEILL RIDGE’, BUT FOR AS LONG AS I CAN REMEMBER, TRAMPERS HAVE CALLED IT THE ‘NE ILL-WINCH COM BE’
Running east to west, the ridge provides a direct line across the Tararua Range from Cone to Mt Hector. In the early days of tramping, the Greytown-Mt Hector Track Committee briefly contemplated using the ridge for the Southern Crossing route, but soon decided it posed ‘too many difficulties’.
Much of Neill Ridge is covered in gnarled silver beech forest, so moss-enveloped that in places no bark shows at all; a tracery of unrelenting green.
The ridge traverses a number of torturous knolls, the highest being Neill and Winchcombe, gradually rising to narrow tops where trampers must navigate around precipices until they broaden, shortly before culminating at Mt Hector. Combined with the Southern Crossing, the ridge forms a satisfying three to four day circuit, beginning and ending at Waiohine Gorge Road.
The cloud disperses as Kathy Ombler and I reach Bull Mound, having followed the original route of the Southern Crossing. We'd lunched at Cone Hut, then begun the uphill slog to the bushline, where tarns gleamed in the weak sunlight amid alpine wetlands. Out of
