Two trampers died in the Tararua Forest Park during a snow storm at the weekend. They were 61 year old Dr Seddon Bennington, and 54 year old Marcella Jackson. Dr Bennington had been the CEO of Te Papa, the National Museum, for six years. Mrs Jackson was a senior medical technician, in a medical laboratory.
On Saturday, the pair entered the Tararua Forest Park which is north of Wellington and inland from Levin. They planned to walk to hut and return on Sunday. When they didn’t return, a 50-person Search and Rescue team, with three helicopters, started looking for them. Their bodies were found on Wednesday morning, covered in snow. They had become separated and were about 300m apart. They were about 1 km from the hut and probably did not reach it before the storm brought cold winds and flying snow. This made it impossible to see where they were going.
Dr Bennington was an experienced tramper. The weather forecast early on Saturday morning said that there would be cold winds and snow on the hills in the Tararua Forest Park but perhaps they did not listen to the weather forecast.
Dr Bennington was a scientist but he was also interested in the Arts. He started his career in Dunedin at the Otago Settlers museum and he also worked in the United States and Australia in Science centres and museums.