Kahurangi Calling Dedicated to John George Mitchell (1942–2005) Spreading John’s ashes, Peel Ridge, December 2006. (Photo: Mike Mitchell) Kahurangi Calling Stories from the backcountry of Northwest Nelson Gerard Hindmarsh This book was written with the support of Creative New Zealand. First published in 2010 by Craig Potton Publishing Craig Potton Publishing 98 Vickerman Street, PO Box 555, Nelson, New Zealand www.craigpotton.co.nz © Gerard Hindmarsh © Photographs: individual photographers ISBN 978-1-877517-19-8 Printed in China by Midas Printing International Ltd This book is copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of private study, research, criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright Act, no part may be reproduced by any process without the permission of the publishers. Contents Acknowledgements 6 Preface 11 Chapter 1 Battle for a park 12 Chapter 2 The graziers’ lament 27 Chapter 3 Earthquake country 40 Chapter 4 Kill Devil 54 Chapter 5 Sylvie’s Pond 66 Chapter 6 The eelers 81 Chapter 7 Men alone 94 Chapter 8 The lure of asbestos 109 Chapter 9 Sighting the owl-parrot 129 Chapter 10 Lighthouse K4236 139 Chapter 11 One more for the road 152 Chapter 12 Forgotten huts 165 Chapter 13 Wilderness coast 176 Chapter 14 Mokihinui madness 196 Chapter 15 The Heaphy 207 Chapter 16 Taitapu 225 Chapter 17 Going under 238 Bibliography 250 Index 253 Acknowledgements I have so many people to thank for all their stories, including ones already published that I drew on and expanded. Jim Henderson’s The Exiles of Asbestos Cottage was a classic I could not go past. Wild Rivers by John Mackay gave me much information about the Karamea watershed. Don Grady’s Grady’s People gave me extra insight into the Hermit of the Herbert Range, Gerald Cover, as well as Cobb musterer Avelon Thorn, while Men Alone by Julie Riley was the perfect introduction to legendary New Zealand Forest Service (NZFS) ranger Snow Meyer. Derek Shaw’s North West Nelson Tramping Guide became both my pack- and desk-side companion the whole time I was putting this manuscript together. Recent and not so recent flora and fauna updates, such as Wildlife in the Nelson Region by Kath Walker, proved invaluable references. Maori Bird Lore by Murdoch Riley enlightened me about the kakapo that once traipsed in great numbers through Kahurangi. Difficult Country, an informal history of Murchison, gave me great background to the Murchison Earthquake, one of Kahurangi’s truly defining events. Barry Chambers of Karamea collected endless stories and historical information on his area and self-published these in two spiral-bound books Karamea’s Forgotten Footprints and The Heaphy and its People. To come across such meticulously recorded local history when writing a book like this felt little short of miraculous. Alec Woods of Nelson, many thanks for putting me onto your thesis about the Gold Prospecting Subsidy Scheme that was enacted by the Unemployment Board during the Great Depression. Your complaint that your history supervisor of the day had not wanted you to insert anecdotal tales and instead encouraged you to stick it to ‘primary’ research left me convinced I needed to tell these stories. Thanks to Pauline Blincoe for permission to use some of the accounts of working at Lake Sylvester, from her book Yesterdays of Golden Bay. All those who tramped well before I came along: I am in awe of your adven- 6 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS turous spirit that took you into what was then largely unexplored territory. Skeet Barnett, Frank Soper, Brian Reilly and Eric Page—great modern explorers and first-time rafters of the Karamea River—you will always be an awesome foursome to me. Thanks for yarning with me about those times. Arnold and Jan Heine, your tramping days, too, were beyond compare. To more contemporary newcomers like Paul Kilgour and Warwick Briggs, thank you for sharing your knowledge of your favourite routes—Blue Shirt to the Kahurangi coast and across the Dragon’s Teeth, respectively. Andy Dennis, you set me right about miscellaneous historical detail on many an occasion, even if you didn’t realise you were doing it. To Sam Miles, I am grateful to you for pushing me to go on that tramp. If it wasn’t for you I would still only be intending to go to the Ministry of Works Hut. Richard Jongens, your geologi- cal explanations finally made me understand the processes that made Kahurangi landforms the way they are. Lastly, thank you all for taking an interest in our backcountry—it’s all worth it! Limestone provides a 50-metre-thick cap on the striking Hundred Acre Plateau north of Murchison. Over 400 species of native plants occur on the fertile soils of this and neighbouring Thousand Acre Plateau, despite the burning and grazing of these tussock-clad ‘tops’ early last century. (Photo: Craig Potton) 7 Running 144 kilometres north to south and up to 60 kilometres wide, Kahurangi National Park is a vast wilderness as seen here from the Garabaldi Ridge. Its present ranges only began form- ing 15 million years ago during the Kaikoura Orogeny, when an ancient peneplain was eroded to the craggy lines of similar-height peaks that so characterise this area today. Remnants of the peneplain that did survive now stand out as the Mt Arthur Tablelands and the tussocky downs of Gouland, Gunner and Mackay. (Photo: Andris Apse) Farewel l Spit Whanganui Inlet Lake Otuhie Collingwood Golden Bay Kahurangi Point r e Otukoroiti Point iv R re Parapara Peak Mackay re H Ao Takaka Big Bay Downs eap hy Tra ck Boulder Lake Abel Tasman Wekakura Point Gouland National Downs Park Heaphy River 60 Gunner Ro Downs ari ng L io n Cobb Reservoir Kohaihai Blu R . Motueka Oparara Basin er iv E R G ka ue Karamea Karamea N ot ribaldi Ridge Bend A M Karamea River Ga R RANGE RT R BE Nelson R E U H H T W R Richmond a er n A iv ga R p ka ek pe a T ga rac n E k Wa G 6 N A E R Mokih G D inui R. N N A Mt Owen O R M I H Hundred Acres I R C T I Plateau A E R G M N A Thousand Acres R E Plateau P iver O u R H ira Wa 63 6 St Arnaud Buller River Murchison Lake Lake Rotoiti Rotoroa 10 Preface I have been collecting these stories for over three decades; all are yarns I con- sider must be told before they are forgotten. I listened to some of them around campfires, others while sitting on snowgrass outside high-country huts, one or two even while whitewater rafting past massive earthquake slips. A couple were gathered along gut-busting ridges, words thrown to me between wind gusts and panting breaths in the very footsteps and handholds of those who had gone before. Every time I heard one of these stories, I felt privileged. Each of these stories is historical and filled with living memories. All relate to the 455,000 hectares of wilderness that neatly fills the South Island’s top north- west corner. It is now known as Kahurangi National Park and, after Fiordland, it’s the second biggest stretch of unadulterated wilderness left in New Zealand. It doesn’t contain the dramatic crowd-pullers that you see in Fiordland or the Southern Alps; there are no crunching glaciers, towering Mitre Peaks or stunning fiords. Kahurangi’s attraction lies rather in its wondrous geology and its unique plethora of flora and fauna. An unexpected theme that I became aware of while writing these stories was how they all hark back to a less structured and unregulated time. A time, not that long ago, before tracks, huts and bridges became known as ‘assets’ and, worse still, before wildlife became known as ‘biodiversity assets’. A time when a person of character, stamina and longing for aloneness could just go and stay there, build something semi-permanent to live in and not be hassled by any ‘authorities’, simply because those authorities didn’t exist, didn’t care, or their jurisdiction didn’t reach that far. A time when a hut that was built remained there to offer shelter to others until it fell down, rather than being taken out because it didn’t comply with fire regulations, building codes, or treasury requirements about cost-per-person usage. A time when wilderness meant just that, wilderness, left alone except by those who dared enter at their own risk. 11 CHAPTER 1 Battle for a park Born in 1924 in Takaka, Frank Soper grew up like every other country-raised kid of his generation. He spent as many waking hours as he could wandering the countryside near and far, ranging across fields and creeks, down to the beach and into the bush and back, near his parents’ farm at Puramahoi. What he loved most of all was coming across the (now lost) art of ‘menfolk yarning’—listening to all their stories about the adjoining backcountry where they worked, prospecting or mustering cattle and sheep. From one uncle, Frank heard about adventures mustering around Boulder Lake, over the barren Quartz Ranges. Another talked about the two mountain runs he’d ‘broke in’, while a third revealed the existence, if not the exact location, of a fabulously rich and previously undiscovered gold- bearing quartz reef. This man, John Soper, had stumbled across it high in the mountains, and had even brought back samples to prove it. All these yarns were more than enough to fire the imagination of the young Frank.