Signposts – a blog about Te Ara the Encyclopedia of New Zealand

Over the summer I stayed with my mate in the Benneydale back country. One day, left to my own devices, I did a bit of tiki-touring. A few years ago my mate was based at Pureora, a few minutes east of Benneydale, so he was able to give me directions to a couple of places to go in the forest park. First stop was Pureora village itself – well, the half-dozen houses that now make up that community.

After the town I hit the dirt road in search for the ‘Centre of the North Island‘. A spot ‘discovered’ a few decades ago by a DSIR scientist who clearly didn’t have enough work to keep him busy. The plaque on the ‘monument’ (below) tells the story of how he worked it out.

The 'monument' at the 'centre' of the North Island

The plaque on the 'monument'

The ‘monument’ itself was rather disappointing, though probably in keeping with the method of discovery. Call me fussy, but I couldn’t help thinking that if you wish to find the centre of balance for any geological formation, you really should take into account the three-dimensionality of the real thing, and not assume that the landmass is equally distributed.

I was reminded of a family holiday years ago when we visited the ‘Centre of New Zealand‘ in/near Nelson with its far more grandiose monument. I remember Dad asked us how they came up with that being the centre. I threw him a few ideas, none of which were right. He never did tell us.

Nelson's 'centre' of New Zealand monument

Apparently the ‘real’ ‘Centre of New Zealand’ is in the Spooners Range near Tapawera (41 deg. 30 min S., 172 deg. 50 min E.), though this too was found via a gravity survey that took in Stewart Island, the North and South Islands, and the smaller inshore islands, but not the Chathams. The Nelson point was merely a somewhat arbitrary point for an 1870s survey project.

Besides gainfully occupying some surveyors or scientists for a few hours or days and being a nice bit of trivia, I’m not really sure what purpose these centres have. They do make for pleasant enough detours though, and on the way to the ‘Centre of the North Island’ you can do the much more pleasurable (and not terribly strenuous) walk to the summit of Mt Pureora, with its stunning views of the centre of the North Island.

Stunning views from the top of Mt Pureora (click to view panorama)

Malcolm at Mackinnon Pass

Can you be a New Zealander and not ever have walked the Milford Track in Fiordland National Park?

I must have decided ‘no,’ as that’s exactly what I found myself doing last week, first flying to Queenstown, then by bus to Te Anau and by boat up Lake Te Anau to the start of the track. For me there were two more reasons – I’d always heard that my great aunt Gertrude had walked the track around 1900 – in the days when you had to walk both ways. If ‘frail’ Gertrude (who lived to 86) could go there and back then I certainly could at least get there. And then one of the discoverers of the overland route to Milford Sound via what was to become the track was a Mackinnon, just like me, if the variation in spelling be overlooked. (Although, he actually seems to have spelt his name McKinnon, but official documents go with the Mac spelling).

Through the main tramping season 40 ‘independent’ trampers is the daily quota. The ‘independents’ are paralleled by the ‘guided walkers’ – it’s a curious system, arising out of the monopoly that the Tourist Hotel Corporation once had on the track, at which time you couldn’t go independently. In 2011 the two groups – the guided and the independents – have separate accommodation, at separate locations, with the effect that groups starting the same day don’t even see each other.

Sutherland Falls

The independents have it ‘harder’ of course, as they have to carry their food, sleeping bags, and anything else they might want en route. But the track is not that difficult, the only really steep part is the climb to Mackinnon Pass (1154 metres) and that takes two hours at the very outside, and usually more like 70 to 90 minutes. After the descent from the pass, the side trip to the base of the 580-metre-high Sutherland Falls is a bonus.

I guess the experience was much as I expected, but there were particular aspects of it that weren’t. I wasn’t prepared for the amazing number of kōtukutuku (native fuchsia) on the track, the peeling light brown bark on their contorted trunks standing out sharply against the prevailing green. The range of flowers was a pleasure; as too the sighting of robins and whio (blue ducks) amongst other birds. ‘Sightings’ of sandflies couldn’t have been described as pleasure, but would it have been Fiordland without them?

Blue duck on the Clinton River

I learnt the hard way that the track was 53.5 kilometres long – so a correction is on its way to Te Ara, where it is given as 52 kilometres – I can’t forget that last kilometre and a half! Interestingly the distance markers are still in miles – 33 of them – with the kilometre distances added.

Gentian (?) on Milford Track

The overnight huts, as well as being comfortable, had lots of interesting geological, botanical and historical information about the track and its surroundings – like a portable Te Ara you might say.

The track, and indeed the whole of Fiordland, are placed firmly in the Southland region in Te Ara, and I think that’s where they belong – certainly the national park is run out of Te Anau, a township with a strong rural Southland flavour. But the historical information showed how much the exploration endeavour in the late 19th century came out of Dunedin, whilst today many of the walkers on the track are Queenstown-based. They’re from all over the world – our cohort had Dutch, Germans, Japanese, Americans and Australians as well as Kiwis. Neither geography nor history stands still.

‘With a high rainfall, the weather is a regular topic of conversation on the West Coast.’  (Te Ara West Coast entry)

The kind of rainfall Ben and his family had to content with on their West Coast trip

One of the highlights of our South Island family holiday was to be several days camping on the West Coast. After booking the Picton ferry in September I’d scanned the web for dog-friendly campgrounds. I found two: at Lake Brunner and Carters Beach. I rang the one at Lake Brunner to confirm a place. The grizzled voice at the other end of the phone guffawed when he discovered I was booking so far in advance. ‘Nah, ya don’t need to book. They’ll be plenty of space.’

Following Christmas with whānau in Nelson, we drove south for the West Coast. Climbing the (ironically-named) Hope Saddle the heavens blackened and soon the windscreen wipers were struggling to clear the sheets of rain. At the turn off to Nelson Lakes the road to Murchison was sealed off. I asked a road worker, the rain dripping off his stubble, how long the road might be closed. ‘Could be five hours, could be less, could be more,’ he supposed slowly. I smiled and turned the car towards Blenheim. We promptly decided to reverse the holiday and visit the West Coast on our return.

A week later, having been charmed by the kea at Arthur’s Pass and impressed by the marvel that is the Ōtira viaduct, we finally descended to the West Coast. As the valley opened we could see in the distance that it was raining on our right and overcast on our left. ‘Which way are we going?’ asked one the boys. ‘Right,’ I confessed. We all laughed. Fortunately, by the time we got to Lake Brunner the deluge had stopped. We soon found the rather desultory-looking campground. It was for sale.

The grizzled voice was sitting in a battered armchair on the office verandah, alongside other ageing Coasters, all with beers in hand. ‘Gidday,’ I said. They nodded. I explained how our tent was not very waterproof and asked whether it might rain. ‘Probably,’ they agreed. Then one stepped off the verandah, looked at the sky and declared: ‘You’ll be right mate the weather comes from this way and its clearing.’ We decided to risk it. The only other option was a musty cabin the size of a double bed. We quickly erected the tent, the pegs effortlessly sliding through grass and sphagnum moss. After dinner we headed down to the stunning lake. The boys found a rope going out over the water and spent until dusk swinging out and jumping into the lake, while the dog and I fought off sandflies. We went off to sleep to the sound of kiwi screeching and the 11 p.m. coal train from Westport. The rain, as promised, stayed away.

The next day we headed to Carter’s Beach via (amazing) Punakaiki. The bubbly office woman at Carter’s Beach campground declared it hadn’t rained for days and was unlikely to soon. We booked in, pitched the tent, and headed into Westport for some fish and chips. Westport is a major fishing port and I was hoping we might score some fresh fish. Scanning the menu board of the recommended takeaway we found only one species: rig. ‘What’s rig?’ I asked the sullen-faced woman behind the counter. ‘Shark,’ she snapped. Viewing the limp fillets beside the fryer I asked ‘Do you have any other fish?’ ‘No,’ she replied with a disdainful look clearly reserved for outsiders. The boys ordered chicken burgers (which have gone down in family folklore for their awfulness) and Lis and I decided to boil up some pasta – again.

Tired from a busy day, we fell asleep early, only to be woken by heavy rain and strong winds around 6 a.m. Clearly the bubbly woman was a practical joker. As the tent poles buckled with each new wind gust, large drips of water fell down from the tent roof onto our sleeping bags. The dog whimpered. I finally decided we’d better get up before the tent was ripped to shreds – the one across from us had already collapsed. Stuffing everything into the boot of the car, we headed north through the Buller Gorge for the sunny refuge of Nelson. We obviously didn’t have what it takes to be Coasters.

This is the time of the year when people come back to work and exchange answers to the old question: ‘what did you do over the summer hols?’. It’s partly a device to delay getting stuck into the ‘to do’ pile; but it is also an important way of re-establishing collegiality.

Sinclair Basin, Te Kahui Kaupeka Conservation Park

This year my short answer was that we walked from the Rangitātā River to Lake Tekapo in South Canterbury. The long answer (given, if work seemed particularly burdensome!) was that I was attracted to the route for two reasons. The first was that in 2009 as part of the process of tenure review, owners of the Richmond and Mesopotamia stations gave up use of the large Sinclair basin to DOC in return for ownership of land on the flats. I was keen to explore the new publicly-owned estate, now called ‘Te Kahui Kaupeka Conservation Park‘, meaning ‘the gathering place of the waters’.

The second attraction was that this was land once farmed by the great Victorian writer Samuel Butler, perhaps Canterbury’s most distinguished intellectual. Butler arrived in the broad Rangitātā River basin in the winter of 1860 and set himself up in a small hut on Forest Creek before establishing a claim at Mesopotamia up-river. We set off from Mesopotamia station and then walked across huge open terraces to Forest Creek where the remains of Butler’s hut are still to be seen.

That was not the end of our walking with history. We then climbed up and over the Sinclair Range. The name remembered Andrew Sinclair, for 12 years from 1844 to 1856 New Zealand’s leading public servant as colonial secretary. An ardent naturalist, Sinclair returned to New Zealand in retirement and joined Julius Haast in his explorations of the headwaters of the Rangitātā. There, just a few weeks after Butler had climbed the Whitcombe Saddle in February 1861, Sinclair was drowned trying to cross the Rangitātā River. He was buried close to Mesopotamia. So the area is redolent of past ghosts.

Dobson's speargrass/Taramea

As we climbed over Bullock Bow Saddle, we descended into a magnificent and huge basin of golden tussock. Since Butler’s time this had been used to feed merino sheep. The only signs of human impact were two musterers’ huts which had served the men and the dogs when they went over the pass to round up the sheep. Today it is now deserted conservation land. It was not all tussocky grass. We noticed immediately several species of spaniards which we had never seen before, and which our DOC pamphlet informed us were special to the area.

Then there was was another climb over a pass on the Two Thumb Range before we headed down Camp Stream and onto the Round Hill ski field road. The flowers – delicate gentians,  big white celmisias, and the spaniards – were a constant companion. In all a great three day trip which has now become part of the Te Araroa trail stretching from Cape Reinga to Bluff.

Yet not all was perfect in this eden of natural and human history. For a start the orange markers erected to assist poor city walkers such as ourselves were distinctly spasmodic. At one point having dragged us up a precipitous hillside, we were left with no indication of where to trudge next.

It was also clear that tenure review had not been without its conflicts. A local farmer, objecting to signs giving walkers information on the route, had systematically destroyed the boards and obliterated all evidence of public access. Even the helpful owner of Mesopotamia station observed that one consequence of tenure review and the establishment of conservation land had been that visitors no longer respected the private property which remained. It was assumed that all was available for public use.

Yet there is a necessary balance. If some land should remain so that farmers can continue to earn a living from the soil, other parts offer another richness – in the history and the botany and the sheer physical beauty which restores all those of us condemned to labour in city offices.