A Bonnetful of Bees

Some years ago we went up to Wilson Rd, off the South Head road, to visit Mark and Lesleigh, and we were taken on their John Deere for a ride out to the coast and along the beach. The route started at a gate by the southern end of Lake Kereta and headed along Deacon Rd to the coast.

In the years following, access through the forest to the coast for the public became a matter of prolonged dispute, and was eventually resolved in favour of the public. However, the route agreed on no longer followed Deacon Rd, but instead, a 4WD access was bulldozed along the western edge of Lake Kereta for about two thirds of its length, before heading more or less straight out to the coast. Access to Inland Rd is barred by locked gates and large blocks of concrete, and access to Coast Rd has been blocked by a combination of tank traps and bulldozed tree trunks, which also feature along much of the route so as to prevent any vehicle access to the pine forest.

Last month, Lesleigh returned from Napier for a visit, and we went out to Wilson Rd, and about a week later I took Miranda out there and right out to the coast. This is the route we followed.

This valley is the route taken by Maori at death to the northernmost tip of New Zealand and thence to the underworld. It was also a primary route for groups travelling to and from the north. Finds of human bones occur from time to time as local farmers excavate for building sites. One of the curious aspects of a number of these finds has been the absence of complete skeletons, with just the larger, i.e., meat-bearing, bones featuring.

There can be times when the history and traditions associated with the route appear very real and very immediate.

At this time of the year, vehicle use was minimal. As the sandy surfaced road is winding and narrow – wide enough for one 4WD only for most of the route – and bears evidence of fast travelling vehicles it may not be a completely safe option for pedestrians in the summer months. Or for 4WD vehicles either if it comes to that.

Lake Kereta, so the signs tell us, is on the verge of ecological collapse.

Around the edge, for many years now, there has grown a thick fringe of Manchurian Rice Grass, several metres tall, dominant in much the same way as kikuyu is dominant, and highly resistant to eradication. About ten years back I was given a young orchard tree from Mark’s farm nearby that was surplus to requirements, and one piece of the rice grass accompanied it. For ten years I pulled this grass up wherever I saw it sprouting around the tree, and for ten years it regrew from small fragments. Even Roundup seemed ineffective.

Eventually I painted it with undiluted Roundup, which seemed to do the trick. My first thought was, “How on earth are you going to get rid of that grass without the ecology being totally destoyed in the process, anyway, like the famous village in Vietnam that the American armed forces were forced to destroy in order to rescue it?”

However, it does seem to be diminishing, and I wish them well. In the picture above, you can see the pale brown leaves just below, and some on the opposite shore. I’d like to see raupo, but that’s in the future.

At this point we are walking along the lake edge though a belt of tallish kanuka, and a bunch of whatever else is able to survive on almost pure sand.

Ink weed,

tobacco weed…

and a heap of Parsonsia (kaihua) in full bloom. This is the vine that thrives in the pine forests to the south around Woodhill, where almost nothing finds a home except pampas grass, kanuka, small leaved Coprosma and a few ferns. But I’ve only rarely seen it down there in as luxuriant bloom as this.

They call it the Maori jasmine, and it has a mild and pleasant scent, but nothing compared with my expectations of it. I can’t say the same for the basket fungus, which is fully as putrid smelling as its reputation suggests. Lots of it about, too.

We carry on beside the lake, heading generally north.

Along the way there’s a large sign, which I would think relates to the recent access dispute. Judge Fenton was an early and prominent judge in the Maori Land Court, and this piece of land we are now walking through he used to farm, with his neighbour being the well-known stock and station agent, Alfred Buckland. Haere mai, for New Zealanders, needs no translation. Welcome! “Huariki ki te tahatika” means roughly, “the route to the coast”. Interesting. While I had heard of the dispute, I had not been aware there was a Maori element.

A dozen or so black swan glide across the water in the far distance, and Alice pays keen attention. With all that hair hanging across her eyes, and from ground level, almost, her sight is still considerably better than mine. Just below us the lake divides nearly in two. Lake levels here have a cycle of approximately thirty years, the time it takes for the pine forest nearby to mature and be harvested, Mark’s young orchard, comfortably clear of the lakes on his farm, turned into swamp at the last harvest, when the water levels rose by two metres inside a few weeks.

The present level will continue to drop gradually for the next twenty years or so, and a floating jetty across the lake is built to accommodate this.

We continue through the kanuka at the lake edge

We’re not the first by here today. Deer. We’ll see plenty of hoofprints closer to the coast, but no hooves.

We turn sharply left and uphill and quickly leave the kanuka and scrub behind.

On either side of the road are tank traps to prevent or at least impede vehicular access. Elsewhere, felled trees are piled along the edge of the road, or a combination of both.

I’d say the digger driver brought his rubbish bags along with him. Or maybe he was just covering stuff somebody else had dumped. C-L-E-A-N U-P N-Z, I think it says…..

The first day we head out is in the wake of a severe storm,

and as we crest the rise and look out across the pines to the coast, the surf is impressive. Remember, it is about a kilometre or more distant.

We have just been walking through mature pine forest, but here we strike the new forest, and head on down to the intersection with Inland Rd. Inland Rd is still used as a major forestry route, but is closed to the public.

Immediately to the other side of the inersection is a small carpark for hunters. Fallow deer roam throughout Woodhill forest, and hunters ballot for shooting rights – a bit like the time-share concept, except it’s a lottery of sorts. Ballotted hunters are restricted as to time and location, and maintain a minimum distance from public access ways, but poachers, respecting none of these constraints, are not unheard of, and it probably pays to wear brightly coloured clothing, especially out towards the coast. Part of the northern forest area is completely closed to the public during the main shooting season in winter.

The track is firmly packed sand, and at least this far would probably support a 2WD vehicle, but I imagine in the heat of summer it would dry out considerably and be much softer. In any case, the sand immediately next to the coast is no place for a standard sedan.

Just here, Coast Rd heads south and north, almost invisible behind a barrier of tank traps, piled up logs and bulldozed sand ridges. Carter Holt Harvey (CHH) has one of the most consistently zero-scoring aesthetic records of any outfit I’ve come across.

This patch of pines will probably never be felled, offering it’s grotesquely twisted and sculpured shelter to the belt of new forest immediately inland.

And here we are. It’s considerably quieter here today than it was last week.

though you can see where last week’s storm has eaten into the coastal dunes.

An earlier vehicle has headed north along the coast, probably fishermen.

Alice heads out to investigate the surf, and romps around in the shallows.

I think this is just about my perfect West Coast. Clean sand, sea, and isolation.

The brisk north westerly wind carries a stinging load of fine sand along the beach and even up into the dunes. We hunt for a sheltered spot to grab some lunch, and I note more or less subconsciously that a norwester is one of the main rain-bearing winds in this area.

Alice wants to know why we don’t do this more often.

We find a sheltered spot and unship the thermos and sandwiches. The sky above is fluffy white and blue. It’s been ages since I’ve just lain back and watched the clouds. As kids we used to look for flying thistle and dandelion seeds against this sort of blue.

Suddenly we have visitors.

Despite the bright blue, the wind has a bite in it. It might be time to start home.

More tank traps discourage 4WD vehicles from exploring along the ridge of the dunes. It’s arguable which is likely to generate more wind erosion, the vehicles or the tank traps which rip out the vegetation holding the surface in place.

We take a last look south at the houndstooth patterns in the sand, and head back towards the van.

About 100 metres from the van, it begins to cloud over very fast. About 50 metres from the van it begins to pelt down, a cold, stinging and drenching rain, and we finish at a run, fumbling for van keys as we do so. So much for the clothes on the line at home which have already been there for some 72 hours.

Total time, including lunch, a little under three hours.