Taieri Recreational Tramping Club

The heavy-duty seat at the look-out down the Jim Freeman’s track has been named the Douglas Seat (it was at a point where there were lots of Douglas first.

– from the Friends of Ben Rudd’s Newsletter, No. 5 12/98/2000

Some History. (Can’t recall where I got it from. Sorry.)

Huriawa Peninsula. The peninsula was a superb natural pa site. Volcanic in origin, it rises sheer from the sea and had the twin blessings of a reliable spring and a small cove on its northern side where canoes could be safely beached. It was selected for this purpose in c. 1730 to serve Ngai Tahu under Te Wera, but had in all probability previously been used by Ngati Mamoe. It has excellent views to the north and south, and its natural defences of sea and cliffs is ideally suited for use as a pa.
it was originally call Pa-Katata, a name which is now used only for the rocky knob at the seaward point.

Te Wera had only just been chosen as chief by his Te Ruahikihiki hapu when they became embroiled in continual strife with his belligerent cousins, Taoka and Moki II. Trouble began when Te Wera was accused of practising makutu (wizardry) on his kinsfolk and of killing them. First he sought sanctuary at Purakaunui where Te Rehu, his brother-in-law held sway. Attacked there, the pair made a miraculous escape and arrived at Huriawa to find that a tangi for them had already begun. Together they exacted vengeance and in turn Taoka arrived at Huriawa and proceeded to lay siege. Taoka came by sea and set up camp on the sandspit, Olunepouwera, opposite the peninsula at the mouth of the Waikouaiti river. For six months the siege continued, as the pa had its own water supply, a large store of food including preserved birds, fern root and dried fish, and fishing parties could put out at night to supplement food stored on the well-nigh impregnable promontory. An anxious moment came when one of Taoka’s scouts crept in by way of the blow holes and stole the image of Te Wera’s protecting deity. Despair swept through the pa when Taoka was seen across the river saving it triumphantly above his head. But Te Wera’s tohunga Hautu restored it to the pa, some say simply through the air, by means of a powerful karakia. Finally Taoka was forced to withdraw for want of food as the defenders had denuded the area of vegetables before his taua (war party) arrived. The pa was then abandoned, and its inhabitants settled on the banks of the Waikouaiti river.

Later, Taoka turned his attention to Mapoutahi pa to telling effect. Te Wera eventually left the area altogether and moved south ultimately to die as an old man at Stewart Island.

The most prominent reminder of the history of the peninsula is the extensive terracing on its slopes. The terraces were made to provide level house sites and living and working areas. Remains of defensive banks and ditches can also be seen, though the actual palisade lines can be found only through the scientific techniques of archaeological excavation. In many places midden is exposed (shell, bone, charcoal and stone from cooking and other activities) can be seen in cliff edges, banks and slips. All cultural and historical material including archaeological sites, midden and artefacts are protected under the Historic Places Act 1980 and may not be interfered with in any way.

The blowholes on the peninsula are attributed to a romance. A couple eloped and eventually returned, expecting forgiveness. Instead, their irate families took them to the peninsula and hurled them from the cliffs. The young girl, heavier than her husband, is said to have caused the larger blowhole, that nearest Puketeraki Beach. There are in reality not two but three blowholes, but surviving mythology does not explain the third.

The reluctant missionary: A whaling station opened at Karitane in 1837 and it was here in 1840 rather than at which is now Waikouaiti that the Rev. James Watkin (1805-86) elected to live, despite the fact that he had come from Sydney at the instigation and at the expense of Johnny Jones. The Methodist missionary, who had been praying for a return to Britain, did not relish the experience; he chose for the text of the first Christian sermon preached in Otago, “This is a fearful saying”, and when his successor, the Rev. Charles Creed arrived in 1844 Watkin greeted him with words, “Welcome, Brother Creed, welcome to Purgatory.”

Certainly there was little for Watkin to enthuse over. The settlement was a hotbed of drunkenness, immorality and violence, from which the Maori mainly suffered, and the two-roomed native whare Jones provided for him was hardly suitable for one with a wife and five children. Certainly the nauseated Watkin tried, taking a firm stand against the vices of the Pakeha and the “savage customs” of the Maori. To a degree he succeeded; mission schools were established, converts made and an elementary Maori reader prepared and published. But Watkin was never reconciled to his position and was intensely relieved to sail for Wellington, leaving his degenerate parishioners behind. Tortured by ill health, he continually doubted his own considerable ability and lamented his lack of support and the depravity of those around him. A rare moment of elation came when one of his converts at Moeraki refused to give the census-taker Shortland any information because it was the Sabbath. Of Bishop Selwyn he conceded: “I think he is a good man, as far as his church prejudices will allow.”

Sir Truby King (1857-1938): In later years the settlement blossomed as a seaside resort and owes its geographical form partly to Sir Truby King, who had no sooner built his home on the peninsula than he became fearful that the river might cut through the slender isthmus that ties it to the mainland. He would not hesitate to rouse residents on stormy nights and direct them as they slaved to carry sand and build up the manuka sand-breaks he had placed on the narrow neck. Eventually the breaks were built up to such a degree that the danger passed. King was also the moving force behind the planting of various gums and hardy deciduous trees.

King is perhaps the best known of New Zealand’s medical reformers. Son of one of the first settlers at New Plymouth, he attended university at Glasgow and returned to become Superintendent, first of Wellington Hospital and then of the Seacliff Mental Hospital. A reformer in many fields he is best remembered for his founding of the Plunket Society (named after Lord Plunket, then Governor-General) which in his lifetime saw infant mortality drop by two-thirds, from 88.8 to 30.9 per 1,000 births. It was at his Karitane home that the first Plunket baby was reared. The Royal New Zealand Society for the Health of Women and Children (to give it its full title) remains an integral part not only of the country’s public health services, with Plunket Rooms throughout New Zealand staffed with Plunket nurses trained to educate mothers in child care, but of New Zealand society itself. Its success led to an invitation to King to establish a similar organisation in Britain. On his return in 1921 he became the first Director of Child Welfare and then, until his retirement in 1927 , Inspector-General of Mental Hospitals. Karitane nurses, trained in baby care, help mothers with their children.

The phenomenal success of the Plunket Society and the worldwide acclamation that followed have overshadowed other important aspects of his work. Truby King made major contributions in many fields – nutrition, plant acclimatisation, control of coastal erosion, alcoholism, psychological medicine and medical  jurisprudence. His many achievements in the field of psychiatric medicine include dietary innovations, the establishment at Seacliff in 1898 of the country’s first “open” ward, the early development of the villa-hospital concept, and a study of the influence of dental disease on the physical and mental well-being of psychiatric patients. Change was not easily brought about and Truby King was frequently the centre of controversy, but invariably the soundness of his forcefully expressed views prevailed.

No. 31 on old hardcopy list of 113 club tramps. “Pineapple Track – Swampy Summit. Year Round”

The hills around Dunedin are superb viewpoints to see the city, coastline and ranges of inland Otago. Flagstaff is one such hill and like Mt Cargill to the north allows the walker to pass through several types of vegetation en route to the summit.

Most of the features seen from the walk have strong historic significance. Beyond Signal Hill, the site of Otakou can be seen. When the first European settlers arrived, this Maori settlement was the largest in the region. In 1817 this ‘kaika’ contained 600 very “fine houses, neatly furnished”. From 1833-1841, a whaling station was operating from here. The whalers’ township, known as Musselburgh was nearer the heads. By 1840, 250 Europeans were living around the harbour entrance. It was from Otakou that the earliest immigrants received their first supplies of fresh meat, milk, butter and vegetables. The region south to the Nuggets and inland by the Clutha to as far as the Lammerlaw Range and West Taieri was bought for European settlement of $4,800.

Almost immediately apparent from the walk is the distinctive layout of the centre of the centre of Dunedin. Charles Kettle and a party of surveyors laid out the streets in 1848, using the special features of the Scottish capital, Edinburgh as a guide. The planned settlement took its name in 1845 from the Highlander’s name for Edinburgh. The town belt, the ribbon of bush threading its way through the suburbs, cutting off the inner city from the suburbs also dates from the early surveys. Immigrants were offered land packages on or before their arrival in Otago. Each consisted of a 1/4 acre (1012 sq m) town allotment, a 10 acre 4 hectare) suburban allotment, and a 50 acre (20 hectare) rural allotment, all sold at the rate of £2 an acre ($9.60) a hectare). The town belt separated the town and suburban allotments. Most rural blocks were on the Taieri Plains.

Kettle’s name was given to Flagstaff Hill, but through common usage the term Flagstaff became accepted and superseded Mt Kettle.

As early as 1925 there was skiing on Swampy Hill and Flagstaff. Sixteen years later an exceptionally heavy snowfall convinced many of the return of very cold winters. Many Otago skiers spent several weekends clearing the hillside of stones and boulders but unfortunately for them the snow never came back.

In these early days of settlement the forests all but cut off Dunedin to the north. Long before a road was made around Mt Cargill, the track known as ‘Johnny Jones’ (the Waikouaiti whaler) track linked the Dunedin area with Waitati via Flagstaff and Swampy. In 1859 snow poles were put up along the track to guide travellers caught out in storm or mist.

A road was made between Whare Flat along the inland flank of the hill to near the saddle between Flagstaff and Swampy Hill in 1870. The settlers at Whare Flat used it to draw their supplies of timber from the bush on the other side of Flagstaff. In later years these old roads fell out of use.

The settlers, utilising a number of small sawmills, ‘cut-out’ much of the bush on the eastern flank of Swampy Hill and Flagstaff. The Pineapple Track at the northern end of Flagstaff passes through such ‘cutover’ forest. From here podocarps were milled to provide local building materials. Only an occasional remnant podocarp remains. Mahoe (whitey wood) is plentiful here while on the forest floor and tree trunks, many species of fern abound. The upper part of the track here includes totara saplings and old stunted broadleafs with twisted limbs, growing in a slightly drier soil. Hounds tongue and “hen and chicken” type ferns hang from the dead tree trunks.

The tussock on the part of the walk from the Whare Flat Road car park (known as the ‘Bullring’) is being taken over by native scrub: flax, manuka and the occasional Olearia – although these get knocked back by fires from time to time. Native orchids are common here, especially in early summer. Skylarks can be heard on this hill from sunrise to sunset.

The summit: An unobtrusive plane table helps point out the many interesting places which can be seen from here. To the north you can see the higher hill of Swampy with its buildings from aviation and scientific experiments, and to its east is Mt Cargill, topped by a TV transmitter. Further away is the city and the drowned valley of Otago Harbour with the Peninsula beyond and the sand dune suburbs of St Clair and St Kilda connecting this with the mainland.

Turning northwards, the track crosses the tussock-covered scenic reserve beyond the summit. In spring and summer, orchids and violets can be seen between the snow tussock. Boulders of volcanic rock are scattered over the hill top, some of which are clustered in lines of ‘stone stripes’ down the hillside.

The tussock grassland now largely covering the summit and upper slopes is only 2-300 years old. Before this , forest covered the entire area. Periodic fires have encouraged the tussock grassland. Snow tussock, mountain flax and Astolia are the most common native plants, while manuka is encroaching into the grassland that fire has not recently reached.

Once into the bush, the track drops through regenerating shrub-land from the signpost at the top of the Pineapple Walk. It was near this spot that in the 1920s a well-known grocer and tramper guiding parties to see the views would pause, and pass around a tin of pineapple. It became a tradition that once empty the tin would be left on a tree or fence post – giving the track the name.

From clearings on this track can be seen Ross Creek Reservoir and the city beyond, also the Mt Cargill television transmitter and the northern side of Leith Valley. Many shrubs are invading clearings from the bush edge. Fuchsia and pepperwood are common. Grazing has determined the nature of this vegetation with only the unpalatable species surviving.

The Booth Road water treatment station sits in a clearing of ornamental plants. A small round concrete tank in the pines on the left of the track halfway down  from this station is also part of the water supply scheme built before the 1950s. A tap near the edge of the bush gives cool refreshing water to the walker on his or her return.

At the Booth Road end of the walkway, the track passes through the Dunedin City Council exotic plantation. Spruce, ash, radiata pine and Douglas fir were planted over 30 years ago as part of growth experiments with these species in the area.

– From DoC hard copy information sheet.

The first settlers drew their water from the creeks and springs in the area below the Town Belt, the principal sources being the Maclaggan Street, London Street and Regent Road creeks. In 1860 the Town Board tapped a spring in High Street and erected a public pump at the Manse Street corner. Continue reading “Dunedin’s Water Supply”

For many years the Silverpeaks has been a major recreation area for Dunedin people. Since the 1920s excursions have been regularly organised into the hills and some very old huts used by musterers and trampers of earlier days can still be visited.

The walkway follows 15 km of one of the mot popular tramping routes through the Silverpeaks. Continue reading “Silverpeaks Route”

Silver Peaks Forest lies in an area that has long been popular for family outings and tramping. It is  less that 30 km north of Dunedin, on the foothills to the west of the Silver Peaks Mountains, and branch roads from State Highway 1 give easy access. Continue reading “Silverpeaks Forest (dated)”

Planting commenced at Flagstaff Forest in 1906, with introduced trees of a wide variety and type. By 1914 22 different species had been tried, many of them deciduous trees from Britain. These species were unable to compete with weed growth and a switch to evergreen pines was undertaken. Planting from then on was concentrated on the use of Radiata pine, Ponderosa pine, Douglas fir and Larch with a scattering of Spruce in the wetter gullies.
Following WWI there were a number of returned servicemen in need of rehabilitation work and these in the main provided the labour force. During the depression in the 1930s the city made considerable progress in forestry with an ample labour force.
Clearfelling of the first crop commenced at Flagstaff in 1934. Local log sales required approximately 10 hectares per annum to be clear-felled. Two export log trials were undertaken, one in 1959 and the other in 1962.
Export logging on a regular basis commenced in 1969 and continued at a volume of approximately 100,000 cubic metres annually. This reduced to approximately 14,000 cubic metres as a result of the lack of planting between 1940 and 1969. Export logs were sold to Korean, Japanese and Chinese buyers.
With the income and confidence generated by earlier sales the council in 1970 decided to expand its forest estate. Following that decision it added several thousand more hectares making a gross forested estate of 10,000 hectares.

We have a current planting programme of 350 hectares per annum. The replantings and new plantings are in Radiata pine with small annual plantings of Douglas fir and Macrocarpa. All stands have been established with the best quality seed stock available and have been pruned and thinned to produce high quality sawlogs and peelers to maximise the value and the market opportunities of timber produced.

From City Forests Ltd hard copy information sheet

Flagstaff’s original name was the Maori ‘Whakaari’, meaning ‘uplifted to view’. Like many other place-names that were changed in early European times, so was Whakaari. The name Flagstaff was adopted by the early settlers because flags were raised on the summit to signal the approach of coaches from Central Otago. – Department of Lands and Survey, for NZ Walkway Commission.