February 2013 preview

The perfect day biking, tramping and kayaking in Hokitika New Zealand's magazine of the outdoors since 1991

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A week in the remote Hooker-Landsborough Wilderness Area

Rakiura time

The Great Walk where hikers find adventure in slowing down

Death knell of the wild river 5 wild rivers facing extreme threats

Field test The lightest two-person, three-season tents

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Plus Thomas Brunner –

february 2013

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contents February 2013

28 FEATURES

28 Rakiura time

Slow down on the island of tranquility

35 Wild rivers

Wilderness checks out the state of the nation’s rivers and finds five under threat of pollution, damming and irrigation

46 All you need is love

Visit the backcountry hut that Henry and Annie Chaffey called home for 37 years

WAYPOINTS 16 Places

Craigieburn Range, Canterbury

16 A perfect day

The best day ever in Hokitika

18 See more

Three historic passes to tramp

20 Top 3

Mountain bike nirvana

44

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REGULARS

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4 Editorial 5 Pigeon Post

Your letters to Wilderness

6 Big Picture

Birdman of Wellington

8 Last weekend What did you get up to last weekend?

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10 Walkshorts News and events

13 Five reasons to get outside this month 13 Wilderness Word

Enter our crossword competition to win great prizes

22 Off the Beaten Track

An untracked journey through the Hooker-Landsborough Wilderness Area

34 Wild Comment

Was Thomas Brunner a great explorer or a greater adventurer – or maybe neither?

70 Out There

Sympathy for the devil

72 Hotshot The cut

35 www.wildernessmag.co.nz

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Your trips, your pix

What did you get up to last weekend?

Davian Marchant rode the Waitawheta tramline with sister Grace and friend Jackson Newbold doing the hard work

Matthew O’Brien and Tomos Cato climbed Avalanche Peak in Arthur’s Pass National Park

Nina Sawicki climbed the Minarets in the Southern Alps

Annie Guerin camped at Lake Mavis, Arthur’s Pass National Park

Jamie crossed the Waitawheta River on a camping trip to the old Waitawheta hut site in Kaimai-Mamaku Forest Park

Rachel Jones hiked the Mt Pleasant walking track in Christchurch’s Port Hills

Grant, Ethan and Troy Lee sat with kea at the Rob Roy Glacier lookout, Mt Aspiring National Park

Anthony Wright and George Booth visited the shelter at Mangatangi Trig in Auckland’s Hunua Regional Park

The Clarke family from Fairlie (Isabel, Thomas, Hamish and Angus and Mum) overnighted to South Temple Hut

Nige Burgess and Lauren Penny walked the Mt Somers Loop in Canterbury

Tim Knight took kids Brooke and Finn to Waihaha Hut in Pureora Forest Park

Send your pix

Get your ‘Last weekend’ photo published here and you’ll receive an original Spork courtesy of www.ampro.co.nz. Head to www.wildernessmag.co.nz – search ‘last weekend’ – for full submission criteria.

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waypoints

Evening range rovers

Craigieburn Range, Canterbury Easy-moderate

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here’s a plan afoot – watching sunset on the crest of the Craigieburn Range.

A warm afternoon greets us as we wend our way along the Mt Cheeseman Ski Field access road, through the beech forest and clearings, until we reach the first locked gate. It’s much lower than expected, but undeterred we park the car, don boots and packs, camera and food and soldier on, the expected short hop to the top having now turned into a 5km walk climbing 900m.

It’s easy though and we cut out some of the zigzags by taking a direct line up the tussock slopes to reach the snowline and base buildings of the ski field. From here it’s less than 1km and 300m to the ridge top.There’s not a soul to be seen and the warmth of the evening makes for delightful walking conditions, the only problem is the soft snow pack that fills the upper basin.

With a little assiduous route selection we scamper almost to the ridge top by following thawed sections of the basin where rock and tussock are exposed.

The last steep pinch is tough going but we swap the lead to keep up the pace and arrive at the final slope to the crest.

The sun is still up but sinking fast and creating some wonderful lighting effects over the Alps and Harper River catchment directly below. A magnificent evening is seeping into the ranges, a somnolent breeze is wafting out of the Harper and we are good to go for a wander along the crest where more views await.

This snowy landscape is a far cry from the busy streets of Riccarton which we left just four hours earlier and a welcome reminder of what can be achieved in an afternoon from the city centre if you set your mind to it.

- Pat Barrett

Wild file Access From the Mt Cheeseman Ski Field access Rd, off SH73 Grade Easy-moderate Time 2-4hr Map BW20, BW21

www.wildernessmag.co.nz

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Josh Gale walks Rakiura Track on its 10th anniversary and finds much to celebrate, including an excuse to become as lazy and slow as he likes on the island of tranquillity

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Rakiura

time

The white sands and turquoise waters of Maori Beach, just south Port William Hut

www.wildernessmag.co.nz

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The Morgan Gorge is an endangered natural feature of the Waitaha River

Waitaha River, West Coast

Threat: Power generation

Zak Shaw Photography

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42 february 2013

he West Coast’s Waitaha River is a wild and untouched, pristine river with luminous blue glacial water. It is one of the country’s top grade five rivers.

Tai Poutini Polytech outdoor recreation tutor Keith Reilly is one of only 10 people to have ever kayaked the river’s 1km Morgan Gorge, famous for its 200m sculpted rock walls and grade five rapids. Reilly is opposed to a proposal from West Power to construct a tunnel running parallel to the gorge to pipe water to a powerhouse located on the flats below.

“On a world scale, pristine, free flowing rivers like the Waitaha are a rarity and we have to preserve them and recognise they’re not a commodity,” Reilly says. “Very few people will ever kayak through Morgan Gorge and very few will ever see more than 0.5 per cent of our national parks, nor will they go to Antarctica. But we feel compelled to protect these places because they’re wild and untouched and we want to keep them that way.”

White water veteran and owner of the New Zealand Kayak School Mick Hopkinson has paddled most of New Zealand’s best white water and has a list of 16 of the country’s most beautiful rivers as he sees them. The Waitaha is at the top of that list. “If we’re ever going to fight a battle that needs winning it’s for the Waitaha River,” Hopkinson says. “It’s the Manapouri of our generation.”

Hawke’s Bay District Council

The Tukituki is under threat from irrigation and pollution from dairy intensification

Tukituki River, Hawke’s Bay

Threat: Irrigation and pollution

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awke’s Bay fishing guide Dave Hern is worried about the Tukituki River. During the summer months he says the river has no surface flow. “It’s not just because of water extraction for irrigation,” Hern says. “On a day like this a 25-year-old willow will drink more than 1000 litres of water a day and just between State Highway 2 and State Highway 50 we’ve got more than 140,000 of them on the Tukituki catchment.”

The river’s low flow is why he supports a proposal from Hawke’s Bay Regional Council (HBRC) to construct a water storage dam in a steep gorge on the Makaroro River to capture water over the

wetter months for irrigation over the dryer months.

Currently water for irrigation is being taken from local river-ways, including the Tukituki, and from a deep aquifer under the Ruataniwha Plains which Hern says at current extraction rates will be drained within 15 years.

If the dam is built it will take pressure off the aquifer, improve the flow of the Tukituki and also create a lake for recreation. But Forest and Bird and some local fishers are opposed to the project because they believe it will result in dairy intensification which will further pollute the Tukituki and Waipawa Rivers.The HBRC admits as much, saying the project would allow an extra 25,000ha to be irrigated.

www.wildernessmag.co.nz

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Hanmer Range Hanmer Forest Park, Canterbury

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he Hanmer Range lies between the Waiau and Clarence rivers and is the boundary between north Canterbury and southern Marlborough and as such consists mostly of high, dry, and almost treeless ridges and valleys although many of the southern faces above the Hanmer Basin are well vegetated.

Most visitors will know only of the short tracks and mountain bike trails which run through Hanmer Forest Park near the resort town, but what is less known are the high tops and remote valleys on the northern side of the range where it runs down to meet the Clarence River. This portion of the range provides some moderate challenges for recreation amid these wild and tawny hills.

- Pat Barrett

1 Hanmer Forest

This small forest, consisting of many varieties of exotic as well as native species is laced with numerous walking and mountain bike trails – too many to mention here – and is the focus for many of the visitors to the nearby thermal resort.

2 Mt Isobel Any casual observer to Hanmer Springs will have often gazed at the attractive little summit of Mt Isobel (1324m) standing immediately above the resort to the north. Its rounded summit is a popular trip and walkers are wellcatered for through the variety of marked trails heading summit-wards.

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Dumblane

West of Mt Isobel stands Dumblane (1303m) a less visited summit with great views of the Hanmer Basin and Waiau Valley. It can be accessed from Jacks Pass which is also one of the more popular ways to reach Mt Isobel.

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Mt Charon West from Dumblane, ridge walkers will encounter Mt Charon (1542m) on the crest of the Hanmer Range. It can be reached in a moderate day outing from Jacks Pass and has spectacular views, especially in winter.

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Miromiro

The range’s highest summit is Miromiro (1875m) lying well west of Mt Charon and entailing a 2-3 day trip via most routes. On the way you might also be able to capture Mts Captain, Woolley and Scaife – all around 1800m and providing good scrambling in grand surroundings.

Dawn ascent on Mt Isobel above Hanmer Springs

There are some moderate challenges amid these wild hills 6

Jacks and Jollies Passes These two road passes lie west and east of Mt Isobel, respectively, and are the focus for road trips (4WD only over Jollies) to the Clarence Valley. They can also form the route for a great mountain bike trip or a tramp over Mt Isobel and back down to Hanmer Forest Park.

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About where the St James Range abuts the Hanmer Range is Amuri Ski Field, a local club scene for skiers and those wanting something a little different. Though the field offers only modest terrain it’s friendly and welcoming.

There are few here but two that are of interest, and remote, are Tutu Hut in Tutu Stream on the southern side of the range, and Stony Stream Bivouac in Stony Stream to the north.

Both will require at least a two-day trip, and in the case of Tutu Hut, the local farmer’s permission.

Amuri Ski Field

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Mt Percival and Mt Balfour At the north eastern end of the range these two high summits, 1629m and 1672m respectively, can be reached via a long traverse from Jollies Pass.

Huts

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St James Cycle Trail

The new St James Cycle Trail begins just north of the range on the Tophouse Road in the Clarence Valley and passes through the Edwards Valley to the Waiau and later back to the Clarence over Maling Pass – a 64km circuit. www.wildernessmag.co.nz

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Sympathy

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The New Zealand sandfly; it’s possibly our most ubiquitous species of native fauna and definitely our least loved one – but there are a few redeeming traits. Mark Banham speaks in their defence.

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he Kiwi backcountry, it’s heaven on earth… or at least it would be if it weren’t for the swarming clouds of that little blood sucking devil – the New Zealand sandfly!

Over the years I’m sure everyone who’s spent any significant amount of time in Fiordland or on the West Coast has begged the question: why don’t we just drop the big Mortein bomb and exterminate the brutes?

I certainly have.

However, as an environmentalist with occasional Buddhist tendencies, I figured it was probably poor form to kill off an entire species without at least asking a few questions first. So before stockpiling insecticides for a final solution to the sandfly problem, I picked up the phone to Allen Heath, a parasitologist with Agresearch.

Professionally, Heath specialises in veterinary entomology; studying the various flies, ticks and mites that afflict our sheep and cattle; sandflies are more a labour of love.

He says despite their plague numbers in some parts of the country, not much is known about them. He says even the cutting edge of scientific research is really just “taxonomy, distribution… and then a lot of abuse” and unanswered questions abound: Do sandfly larvae improve water quality? Given it’s only the females that bite, how do the males get by without the protein from blood? How do we effectively repel them? And what would happen if we removed them?

According to Heath, that last question is a particularly tricky one. “You don’t know until you do it,” he says.

“People always have this teleological question of what good are these things as if there’s some sort of purpose behind it,” he says. “What would probably happen – and this has happened in the past – is if you were to remove all the sandflies, something else would eventually take their place.”

That could be a benign, non-bloodsucking insect like caddisflies or dobson flies… or of course it could be something much much worse like an exotic species. Entomology textbooks are filled with insects which transmit horrific diseases; malaria mosquitos, Tsetse flies… or true sandflies (ours are actually misnamed blackflies) which are the primary vector for Leishmaniasis.

But perhaps the biggest change that would happen if we were to eradicate the sandflies would be social rather than ecological. We’re yet to devise a decent sandfly repellent – and that means the sandflies are very effective at repelling us.

It’s no coincidence that the Te Wahipounamu World Heritage Area is located in the southwest of the country – ground zero for sandflies. Places like Cromarty (in Preservation Inlet) and Port Craig (in Southland) were both planned to be major population centres before they were largely abandoned due to sagging commodity prices. But it’s hard to say that the sandflies didn’t play a part.

The thought that anyone wanting to dig a tunnel to Milford Sound would be eaten alive by sandflies is a tad endearing. My enemy’s enemy is my friend When you stand on top of a remote peak in Fiordland and see nothing but wilderness around – you really should take a moment to thank the sandflies.

Likewise Heath says the sandflies may have had an impact on New Zealand’s global political status. In the early 20th century physicist Sir Ernest Marsden started to set up a nuclear

energy programme in New Zealand and began looking for uranium.

“If it wasn’t for the sandflies, it’d be a hell of a lot easier to find it,” Heath says. “He’d send his students out and they’d be just about eaten alive by the sandflies. They were more inclined to knock them off and be distracted by them than to look for uranium.

“So you could probably say the sandfly had an effect on our nuclear energy situation.”

Of course, if Sir Marsden had found uranium, chances are he would have fired up New Zealand’s own nuclear reactors – and chances are the whole nuclear free thing and the nation-defining stand against America would never have happened.

Likewise Heath says many of our major infrastructure projects like the hydro-power dams and the Hermitage were made significantly harder by the sandflies.

“The [workers] hands were just a mass of lumps.They reckon that at night they’d be fast asleep but would be still rubbing their hands and flicking their hands around their faces – they just did it so often through the day that it got engrained in their heads, the poor devils.”

I dislike the sandfly as much as the next guy, but I must admit the thought that anyone wanting to dig a tunnel to Milford Sound or install a monorail through the Caples Valley would be eaten alive by them is a tad endearing. My enemy’s enemy is my friend.

However, despite those redeeming qualities, Heath says it’s really the practicalities of killing off the sandflies that would put the kibosh on the idea. He says to get rid of them you’d need a massive campaign of herbicides and insecticides which would denude that landscape of every scrap of vegetation.

“You’d have to alter the landscape so much that basically it wouldn’t be acceptable – and it may well bring in other problems,” he says.

“We’ll just have to learn to live with the little devils I suppose.”

Milford Sound; ground zero for the New Zealand sandfly population

The cut An incoming tide races through The Cut into Nelson Haven, while the first rays of morning hit the old pier.

I walked along the Boulder Bank for two hours in the pre-dawn murk, past quirky baches, the lonely lighthouse and a sleeping seagull colony to the end of this natural spit.

I set up my DSLR on a tripod, and programmed the wireless remote to fire off frames while I trotted off to become part of the picture.

The camera was a Canon 5D Mk2 fitted with a wide-angle lens and locked down on a tripod. An aperture of f/22 ensured pin-sharp focus and a shutter speed of 0.3 second blurred the water.

- Raymond Salisbury Submit your hotshots to editor@lifestylepublishing.co.nz

72 february 2013

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