Huts off to them
People in Waipukurau are so used to them they barely give them a second glance. Yet, even after all these years of being away I can’t look long enough at them. It’s that old story of familiarity. Lord Alfred Tennyson got it in one actually when he said, “And year by year the landscape grow Familiar to the stranger’s child” (from his poem ‘In Memoriam A.H.H’). Some of the faces I know when I walk down the main street, others are perfect strangers. It had to happen.
I’m talking about the Ruahine Ranges that run across the eye-line of my home town Waipukurau, They “lie on the main North Island fault line and are young in geological terms, they are still uplifting, with extensive faulting and natural erosion. The Ruahine Range is a horst (block mountain) bounded and crossed lengthwise by a number of active faults; it’s considered to have been uplifted to its present height during the last 1.5 to 2 million years, although it has recently been suggested that the range may be only 0.5 million years old. The range is composed of Wakarara and Ruahine greywackes, of Jurassic age; the argillites, sandstones and spilites are intensely folded and faulted.
Ruahine Range
The range runs for 110 kilometres from inland Hawke’s Bay to near Woodville. At 1733 metres the Mangawekas are the highest point in the range. It is said that, “Maori explored the Ruahine Ranges and visited them for hunting, fishing, plant collection among other things. As yet no archaeological sites of early Maori origin have been recorded in the Park although a number of sites have been recorded in its surrounds.
The tribes associated with the Ruahine Range are Ngati Kahungunu, Ngai Tahu, Ngati Apa and Rangitane and the many hapu included in these tribes, particularly Ngai te Upokoiri and Hinemanu. The Ruahine Conservation Park was occasionally used for refuge and according to tradition, in the 1600s Whatui Apiti, a Chief of Rangitane and Kahungunu descent fled to the mountains west of Takapau after some trouble and built a pa there where he stayed for several months. War parties (taua) crossed the Ruahines.
When William Colenso was planning his first attempt in 1845 he was warned by the local chiefs that the routes were dangerous and many people had lost their lives there. The only person he could find who had been across had done so first as a captive and later as a refugee. Food was gathered from the Ruahines. It is recorded that the beech forests of the mountains were the habitat of the Maori rat (kiore) and every hapu had its own area where no other group could hunt the kiore, which was a great delicacy.
Ancient Tracks
Two ancient tracks have been recorded. The first crossed the Range above the Manawatu Gorge at Ahua-o-Turanga and then on to the Rangitikei or south to Otaki. The second one was used by Colenso when he made the first European crossing in 1845. It followed up the Waipawa and Makaroro river crossed the range at Te Atua-o-Mahuru and then went over Mokai Patea to the Rangitikei River. Maori names for features in the Park such as the rivers, mountains and valleys indicate the close association Maori had with the Ranges.
The Ruahine Forest Park together with adjacent parks form an almost continuous chain of protected lands along the Central North Island ranges, providing high rainfall events reaching an annual rainfall of about five metres. The Rangitikei, Ngaruroro, Manawatu and Tuki Tuki rivers all originate from the Ruahines. The park has a very diverse vegetation and the top of the ranges, above the forest, is covered with leatherwood scrub and herb field grasslands, with red and mountain beech below it in the north and a mixture of forest and scrub with open tussock in the south.
Recreational opportunities include hunting, mountain biking and tracks for both experienced trampers and day walkers. Tramping is known elsewhere around the world as hiking, trekking, walking, or rambling. There are many tramping tracks and huts located in the region including: No Man’s Road to Diane’s Hut, Diane’s Hut to Taruarau Bivvy, No Man’s Road to Dead Dog Hut, Dead Dog Hut to Herricks Hut and the Ruahine Hut to Shute’s Hut tracks are in close proximity to Waipukurau.
The ones mentioned above fall into the basic and standard categories as far as Hut Categories go so understand, these are generally speaking neat and tidy but that’s it as far as creature comforts go. Other easier tracks for school groups or leisure walkers include: Sunrise Track, Triplex Hut, Swamp track and Yeoman’s track.
Tramping Around Waikaremoana
In earlier years I did most of my tramping around the Waikaremoana area. Lake Waikaremoana lies 610m above sea level. The hydro electric generation potential of the area was noted towards the end of the First World War when extensive surveys were carried out. An initial local scheme to supply power to Wairoa was completed in 1923. This was necessary because river bar conditions at Wairoa often stopped the supply of coal to the town and freezing works.
Until hydro-electric developments, the lake’s normal outflow was by leakage through underground channels near the outlet into the Waikaretaheke River. Before the township of Kaitawa was built only in very wet seasons did the lake overflow at the outlet. When construction started, leakage had to be sealed off so that the lake’s flow could be controlled. Divers pinpointed the underground leakage channels and barges dropped rock-fill to seal them.
Moari legend goes something like “in the mists of antiquity the tupua Hine-pukohurangi came from the sky and lured Te Maunga, the mountain, to earth at Onini. Their child was born a mortal being and was named Potiki. His descendants are the Children of the Mist, the Tuhoe of Nga-Potiki, whose history and genealogy cover more than one thousand years. They are the true tangata whenua having been in this area before the arrival of the canoes. There is no way of discovering exactly how long they have lived here, it has been lost in the mists of time.
Having created Lake Waikaremoana during her wild frenzy, the taniwha Haumapuhia heard the roar of the great ocean of Kiwa far to the east and decided to try and reach the ocean before daylight broke. She thrashed her way through a cleft in the mountain range at Te Whangaromanga near Onepoto but suddenly daylight, which is fatal to taniwha, came upon her.
Haumapuhia
Haumapuhia was turned to stone and lay in the river bed with her head facing the ocean and her legs towards Waikaremoana. The water filled the gouges she had left, so forming Lake Waikaremoana. Maahu, her father was so overcome with remorse at having drowned his daughter that he went to the ocean of Kiwa and brought the river up to her with fishes and food for her sustenance. In so doing he earned her forgiveness. Haumapuhia lay undisturbed in the river bed for many many years until the waters of the Waikaretaheke River were diverted for the hydro-electricity scheme. It was then, just before the completion, that a landslide completely covered her and she can be seen no more.”
But back in the Bay, the Ruahines are spectacular, particularly when you’re driving down the hill near ‘The Dome’ on Farm Road. They line up right along the middle of the front window screen as you descend the hill and just as you see them in the photograph. We’re spoilt for beauty here, utterly. Look. Love. Don’t be a stranger.
