Giveaways
WITH REGRETS, I said goodbye to Abel Tasman National Park and its sunny seacoast.
And headed inland to Kahurangi National Park, the great white interior area between Motueka and Karamea, traversed by the Heaphy Track, in the following map.
Kahurangi National Park is the second largest national park in New Zealand, after Fiordland. With over five hundred and seventy kilometres of tracks, including the famous seventy-eight-kilometre Heaphy Track which I write about in another post, Kahurangi is tramping heaven. With its west-coast palm forests, marble mountains, rare birds like the rock wren and the spotted kiwi, and tussock high country, it’s an incredible place to be.
In Māori, Kahurangi means treasured possession, which is exactly what this park is. For hundreds of years, the Māori used tracks through this region to find pounamu, greenstone in local English, which was used to make taonga or heirlooms passed down from one generation to the next.
The diverse terrain includes a series of unique geological features. Mt Arthur is made of hard, crystalline marble: below the ground are some of the deepest shafts and most intricate cave systems in the world.
Cavers have currently joined two cave systems in the area and made a massive thirty-six kilometre long, twelve hundred metre deep underground labyrinth. Nettlebed is now the deepest cave in the Southern Hemisphere of which the depth is known.
In contrast, the Tablelands, a high plateau, are made of limestone and quartz that were lifted and twisted over millennia to form mountains. There are lots of interesting places to visit there, including the historic Asbestos Cottage, the home of two recluses who used to make a living mining that mineral in the days when it was still widely used in industry. Here’s a collage from my book The Sensational South Island:
A popular hike, which I did again this time, is to go from the Flora Carpark (where you have to book) to Flora Hut and the Gridiron Shelters, Salisbury Lodge, Mount Arthur, and the Upper Takaka area (for all of which you have to book as well).
The tracks are mostly quite good and very pleasant to hike along in dappled sunshine.
The historic Flora Hut was first built in 1927. The huts were packed: it was good to see the increasing use of the park!
From there you head on to the Gridiron Gulch and the two bizarre Gridiron Rock Shelters. The Lower Gridiron Shelter is a wooden platform beneath a vast overhanging rock.
The Upper Gridiron Shelter has a small hut as well as an old couch beneath its overhanging rock.
While I was at the Gridiron shelters, I met a woman from the North Island who was hiding because she had dobbed in illegal miners on DOC land.
One reason I hadn’t been back to Kahurangi in years was because I saw a ghost at the Salisbury Lodge, of an old miner. The woman I spoke to at Upper Gridiron said she felt a negative presence as well.
But don’t let that put you off!
This particular area is in the catchment of the Flora Stream. I saw signs by the Friends of Flora, who help the Department of Conservation in the Flora Stream catchment, celebrating the return of the kiwi and the whio, also known as the blue duck; a duck that only thrives in pristine streams and leaves stagnant ponds to other sorts of duck.
Here are some older photos, from The Sensational South Island once more.
The Cobb Valley is different again: its rivers were once glaciers smoothing and polishing the rock as they advanced to form a U-shaped valley, always the sign of a now-vanished glacier as opposed to the steep V that is carved by a river. The valley today still bears many signs of its former glaciers and is filled with volcanic rock, schist and sandstone.
Beyond these tracks, there is some real wilderness, which is what the Kahurangi National Park is famous for in more adventurous circles (I’ve only flown over it.)
After hiking around the Tablelands, I headed via State Highway 6, via Tapawera, to Inangahua, an old mining town toward the bottom of the regional map above. It’s just barely a village these days.
And, from there to Reefton, just off the map above, on the road south from Inangahua (SH 69).
Reefton has a real turn-of-the-twentieth century ambience.
Here’s the old band hall, also built at the turn of the twentieth century.
The town began on an embankment of the Inangahua River called the Strand.
Reefton was the first town in New Zealand to get electric street lighting, in 1888. Whence, the title of an earlier post of mine about Reefton, called ‘The Town of Light: Reefton and the Kirwans Track.’ Here’s a photo showing the main street of Reefton and its historic street lights, which have probably been upgraded several times since 1888!
New Zealand Department of Conservation (DOC) guide, Kahurangi National Park.
And some more of my blog posts that deal with this region:
‘Green Jungles and Waters of Jade: The natural riches of the South Island’s wild West Coast’
‘The Heaphy Track and the Old Ghost Road’
‘My Latest Heaphy Hike (and a flight back over the Dragons Teeth)’
‘Karamea: A Road Trip to the top of the South Island’s West Coast’
And,
‘Volunteering at Kahurangi National Park: What could go wrong?!’
Next week, I will continue my journey southward to the Hakatere Conservation Park, about 110 km west of Christchurch in the foothills of the Southern Alps. I’ve been there before, too; it’s another place I like to revisit!
If you liked this post, check out my book about the South Island! It’s available for purchase from available from my website a-maverick.com.
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