text: North Shore Tramping Club - About Us
   Our Aims
  To organise trips and activities for club members to experience and enjoy the great New Zealand outdoors
  To encourage and support the interests of tramping and associated activities on the North Shore of Auckland
  To foster an interest in native flora and fauna, and the outdoor environment of New Zealand
  We are affiliated with the Federated Mountain Clubs of New Zealand (FMC).
  The club is non-profit by intention.
  RANGITOTO ISLAND SEAT
  A seat donated by the club is located on Rangitoto Island about halfway between the Rangitoto wharf and summit.
  In 1968, the East Coast Bays Lions Club gazed around the North Shore and decided the teenagers needed to be introduced to a sport or hobby that would be inexpensive (today's gear-freak shops obviously didn't exist then) and give them plenty to do instead of always hanging around those street corners.
  After much thinking, they came up with the idea of a tramping club as being an ideal solution for the problem. They inserted a series of advertisements in the North Shore Advertiser asking for all who were interested in forming a hiking and tramping club to come along to a scout hall in Takapuna at eight pm on a cold night in June.
  About four Lions Club members arrived that evening and, as they told us later, wondered if they would be the only ones to turn up. They were immensely surprised when seventy-eight people appeared, and the club was off!
  A steering committee was appointed (almost all to later become members of the club's first committee). Our inaugural president, Graham Macgregor, was at that time vice-president of the Auckland Tramping Club. His vast tramping knowledge and know-how on tramping-club procedures was our salvation, as the rest of us didn't know too much.
  In 1970 a general meeting was held, and members unanimously inaugurated a debenture scheme to allow us to purchase larger club assets, the first one being a club bus, costing at that stage about $9,000.
  In 1971 we were offered the Catholic Tramping Club (CTC ) bus for $2,800. We were very pleased to purchase this, feeling the CTC would be quite correct when they said it would allow us to run cheap trips, allow us weekend trips, and engender a strong club spirit.
  The CTC were of great help to us at this stage, and it was largely their persuasion and help that got our debenture scheme going.
  By the way, when the bus arrived we looked it over with various misgivings about how uncomfortable it would be for long trips. In fact, could you believe it, we went away on our first weekend trip with it set up as for day trips and changed it at Te Aroha for the night. All because we thought it would be too uncomfortable to travel in as a sleeper!
  The club celebrated its first 50 years in 2018.
   BUS HISTORY
  2016 to Present (KCY445) New Hino truck and body. New club logo and restyled bootprints.
  1993 to 2016 (NW2094) Isuzu diesel repainted. All yellow, with boot sole markings. Sold and converted into a house truck.
  1989 to 1993 (NW2094) Isuzu diesel. New chassis and body. Body beige with two-tone brown striping and white cab.
  1981 to 1989 (JL4545) Ford diesel repainted. New paint, body cream with brown striping and white cab. Sold to Wellington Tramping & Mountaineering Club. It was then been sold to some guy on the Kapiti Coast who planned to use it as a means of carrying his motorbike around, and also to live in.
  1979 to 1981 (JL4545) Ford diesel. New chassis, body yellow with black signwriting and white cab.
  1975 to 1979 (HM7801) Ford petrol. New chassis and body. Body yellow with black signwriting and yellow/white cab. Built at Takanini, colour was yellow, although cream was desired. Cab and chassis ended up with farmer in Pukekohe?
  1971 to 1975 (CZ9898) Bedford Petrol. The original club bus handpainted by members. Body white with orange/brown striping, and white/black cab with original boot logo on doors. Purchased from Auckland Catholic Tramping Club. Nickname Tinkerbell. Ended its days in a farmer's field.