Just Thinking

Text taken from the club newsletter.

JUST THINKING

Lake Sumner Forest Park by TONY GAZLEY

‘T oo much poo’, said the entry in big letters in the hut log book and I had to agree. For nearly two hours I had been walking where cows had recently grazed and I was getting increasingly annoyed at constantly dodging the pats everywhere. But then I thought about the previous days and the wonderful areas I had visited— the stunning beech forest with the constant song of the bellbirds, the delightful Lake Marion, the foggy camp by the Hurunui River and then finally the really neat hot pool. Suddenly the cow poo—and the 15 km dusty road-walk still to come—didn’t seem to matter anymore.

I had started three days before very late in the afternoon at the Sisters Stream car park and walked to the northern shore of Lake Sumner. It was the end of a hot Canterbury summer’s day, but the track was easy and I was in no hurry. I spent the last of the evening wandering a little way along the beach listing to a bellbird chorus like I hadn’t heard for a long time. Then a quick meal and I was soon asleep under one of the many old spreading kowhai trees on the bush edge.

Next morning I woke to a valley filled with dense fog—it was an eerie outlook—a bit like being in a dream without colour and where nothing seemed clear or quite real. After breakfast I followed the shore, and the track where it deviated into the bush around bluffs, as far as the turn-off to Lake Marion. The bird song was magnificent, the bush gorgeous—but there were a couple of annoying features—the invasive ragwort and thistles cloaking any clearings in the forest, and the wasps. Without these it seemed to me I would have been in a place untouched— the way the forest was meant to be.

I was nearly at Lake Marion when the fog began to clear and I arrived just as the last patches drifted away at the far end of a very pretty lake with forest to the shores. But again the otherwise picture-perfect view was spoilt by patches of weeds and more wasps—wasps buzzing around, and worse, climbing on the beech tree trunks cleaning up the honeydew. I couldn’t make up my mind if I was almost overawed by the beauty, or devastated by the invasion of the nasties.

I stayed quite a while then left and headed south along the Hope Kiwi track almost immediately meeting a TANB (Te Araroa North Bound). The young woman from the USA was happy to stop and chat, asking questions about New Zealand and answering my queries to her. Her enthusiasm for her trip and the countryside she was travelling through, and her descriptions of the people she had met was infectious, and I left feeling nothing but admiration for anyone walking 3,000 km through the NZ mountains on their own.

I continued only as far as the river where it enters Lake Sumner—the idea was to get some evening photos, but the sun set early behind some nearby hills and so that idea was a failure—but I camped where I was anyway.

Next morning the valley was once again filled with fog and the view was again simply shades of grey (I didn’t count how many). I continued along the track through the spooky misty forest—again rejoicing in the stunning stands of beech but feeling deflated each time I came across a clearing filled with metre-high weeds. The track then headed directly across the valley—and right through the middle of a very large herd of cows grazing on the river flats. This didn’t bother me until I realised in the middle of them about 10 metres away from me was a very, very, large bull. It put its head down, started snorting loudly while looking directly at me and then began pawing the ground. Suddenly I was bothered and beat a very slow backwards retreat, followed by a very rapid forwards one, to the safety of the swing bridge while the bull continued to bellow behind me.

I wandered up to the empty Hurunui Hut and pitched my tent to dry in the sun, ate some lunch and with a light pack headed upstream to the hot pool. I hadn’t been here before and it was far better than I had imagined. Large enough for four or five, with clear water running down a waterfall into the pool and almost too hot to get into but delicious once there. I had just got myself comfortable when out of nowhere up popped a bloke with a cheery, ‘mind if I join you?’ It turned out he was from New York and had walked in over two days from Arthur’s Pass Village carrying a wardrobe sized pack containing a pack-raft, complete with paddle, life jacket and helmet along with his camping stuff. He was going to take a bath in the pool then launch his boat and over the next few days paddle down the Hurunui River, down the length of the lake, down the scary white-water Hurunui Gorge, and carry on paddling to SH1 before hitching to Queenstown for some other adventure! ‘I can’t get enough of NZ’, was his final remark.

I couldn’t last as long in the hot water as he could so I left him there and wandered back to the hut thinking that my four-day tramp was completely pathetic compared to walking the length of the country on your own, or paddling solo down the rapids of a big river in a blow-up plastic boat.

At the hut were a young couple of TASBs (Te Araroa South Bound). They were from Germany, were friendly, inquisitive about New Zealand, had walked for 73 days with only three rest days, were bubbling over with their experiences so far, and excited about the challenges ahead (should they try to cross the Rakaia River?) Again it was difficult not to feel humbled by their enthusiasm and I left them only after talking late into the night for a quiet sleep in my tent.

I left early next morning—for I had to walk down valley through the grazing area with the cow poo followed by a 15 km road-walk back to the car. Whenever I got bored (which was often) my thoughts drifted back to the park I had visited—the park that nearly was—the wonderful parts spoilt by the ragwort, the wasps and cow pats. And I thought of those I had met, visitors to our country that seemed more enthusiastic about the place than most locals do. I thought about the ‘kiwi zone-NO dogs allowed’ sign at the park entrance, and I wondered why it was necessary to riddle all the road signs with bullet holes. I thought about all the rough 4x4s heading up to the lake on that Friday evening. I even caught myself thinking back to a trip a few weeks earlier where I had passed by the once lovely Lake Clearwater only to find locals with their 4x4s parked all along one shore and quad-bikes racing around throwing wheelies along the beaches, fizz boats with skiers churning up the usually placid lake, and the trees hacked about for firewood.

Later in the day with about 5 km of hot dusty road still to go a battered ute heading towards the lake and towing a big jet-boat pulled up. Two good Kiwi blokes (with their dog) asked what I was doing. They thought I was mad, explained they were heading into the park to go shooting along with a lot of others heading there for the weekend, but then offered a frosty Speights from a chilly bin wedged between the front seats. I accepted with a ‘would love one thanks, sure you have a spare?’ ‘Mate, we have a stack of them here,’ they replied.

They left in a cloud of dust and me with a final thought for the trip—blokes, guns and booze—right guys I’m outa here. I’d swap all of this local stuff to be back with the overseas Te Araroa walkers and adventurers any day.