I had been fast asleep when I was suddenly startled awake by the sound of a car coming up the road from the valley. A car towing a very squeaky trailer by the sound of it. I grabbed my phone and checked the time: 10:36pm. Not good. It didn't think it likely a mountain biker would be coming up here at this time of night, unless the were doing a night run...?!
As a few more moments' listen confirmed the car was definitely coming up Scotts Rd and was showing no sign of stopping before reaching the car park I got out of my sleeping bag and grabbed my phone ready to dial in one hand and my knife in the other...and waited. The vehicle slowed as it entered the carpark, drove past where I was camped with no sign of having seen me, then swung around in the carpark to drive out again...then stopped. Then turned a little so that it's headlights were full on my tent. Goddammit! Before the car (or ute/SUV by the sound) killed its engine I unzipped the inner wall of my tent and also the fly, leaving the fly held closed only by two Velcro tabs. The car's engine switched off, the door opened and a haughty male voice said loudly "Oy!". Phone and knife in hand I scrabbled out of my tent , popped my head over one side of it, and eyed the man as best I could in the blinding light of the headlights and, trying to keep any of the fear that was flashing through my guts out of my voice said "Hi".
The guys seemed a little taken aback for a second and then said "You a tourist?" to which I replied, "No, I'm a hiker". I'm sure I probably nervously spewed some other information about the trail, but I can't remember, however I finished by asking "Are you the farmer from down the valley?". Even in the glaring light of the headlights I thought I recognised the truck and trailer as the one I'd seen bouncing around the paddocks below when I'd been dithering about where to pitch. To my relief he answered "Yeah", though admittedly I wouldn't have really known if he was or not. By this time a woman, who I assume was his wife, had also got out of the car. Irrationally my fear, somewhat abated by the course the conversation was taking, was abated a little more by this. It turned out the farmer and his wife have apparently been having a bit of a problem with poachers, so they do a nightly run up here to the carpark to make sure people aren't lurking about waiting to pester their stock. "No one who comes up here after 9pm is up to anything good" the farmer said gruffly. Cheerful thought given my present circumstances...the woman went on to explain they've had trouble with a prize bull in the past, and now, with the rut coming up, the farmer added that they were on high alert about their stags. I assured them I was no poacher, merely a hiker looking for a place to sleep before moving on up the trail first thing in the morning. The clearly realised the fright they had given me as I heard the woman ask the man quietly if they had any beer with them, to which he replied "No", but I can only assume she meant to offer me one to calm my nerves. I asked them if it was alright if I stayed here the night or if they thought it would be better for me to move on. They said I'd be fine here. They knew I was up here and the road goes past their house so any cars that go past they'd be hot on their heals in case they were poachers. Small comfort, I thought. I wanted no more cars to come past my tent in the night again, ever!
Soon enough we went our separate ways, the farmer and his wife trundling back down the road and me collapsing in a heap in my tent. I debated packing everything up and moving on to somewhere else, dark or not, but figured I'd have the same problem anywhere along the next several kilometres of road, and at least here a seemingly trustworthy farmer knew I was here and was on alert for unusual traffic on the road. I slid back into my sleeping bag but it was a good three or four hours before I settled enough to go back to sleep. When I finally did I had repetitive dreams of alternative outcomes to parallel encounters, some good and some not good. I vaguely remembering hearing shot gun blasts but I'm not sure if I dreamed them or not, inspired no doubt by a remark the farmer's wife had made about not to worry if I did hear some, it would just be them firing in the air to warn off poachers if they did make an appearance. Finally the sun came up and I can honestly say I have never been so pleased to see a new day in my life.
After an unexpectedly uncomfortable toilette, a hasty breakfast and pack down, I set off down the road. I had resolved to never pitch anywhere near carparks or anything remotely near people that wasn't a designated camping area ever again, and looked forward to pitching happily in a forest up a remote walking track this evening, as far away from people as possible. But first I had to get there.
A few quick kilometres brought me to the turn off into the logging area that was closed to hikers during the week. Happily today, a Sunday, it was all closed up and no operations could be heard anywhere in the valley. While the makeshift but sturdy metal gate blocking the road was shut, it was easy enough to skirt around the edge of it (and see that others had done likewise) and head down the gravel forestry road and off up the valley. It was a bit difficult in places to see just which gravel road I was supposed to follow; while the trail notes do give moderately specific instructions, for one key intersection there proved to be two options that might meet the written criteria. I sat on a tree stump and had a muesli bar while I contemplated my map, not wanting to waste time and energy by taking a wrong turn. While I munched a ute driven by a large Maori guy in a high vis vest came down the road I thought I needed to take. He seemed a bit surprised to see me and didn't stop to chat, and also had a burly dog in the back, so I hazarded a guess that he was a forestry worker (else how did he get past the gate?) who had popped in to site early that morning either to check on things (although then he might have asked me what I was about surely?) or for a spot of hunting. The back of the forestry block backs onto regenerated native bush which I'm sure is a bit of a haven for pigs. His ute tray was empty however so if he had been hunting that morning he apparently had not met with success.
Finished my muesli bar I shouldered my pack and set off in the direction from which the ute had come, convinced the other random road leading uphill slightly probably petered out in the middle of nowhere. My compass suggested the seemingly more utilised of the two tracks was heading more in the direction I wanted to go. Fortunately I had chosen correctly and I soon passed the idle heavy machinery of logging operations suspended for the weekend and found the grassy 4WD track heading off up the ridge into the scrub--Burttons Track. Not far in were the recent and non-buried leavings of someone's early morning toilette, right there beside the track. Hoping it wasn't a fellow hiker who would be so disgusting (and thinking it might have been the query-hunter) I continued on. I tried to get to the ridge in one go, but stopped just shy of the top (as it turned out--typical) for a short break. At the top (or very near it) a stile leads over a fence to a walking track back down through the bush into the neighbouring valley. There's a bench seat here erected in memory of someone who dedicated their time and energy to maintaining the track, and even though I'd just had a break, in the spirit of never passing up a good seat I sat for a minute to take in the view before heading over the stile and disappearing into the trees.
It's a fairly steep decent down the track in places, and I was surprised about halfway down by the appearance of first one dog and then another coming up. The one, an orange pointer of some kind, took exception to someone else being on his track and started barking, while the other, a little wiry terrier type, quickly trotted over to investigate and get petted. A hollered "Storm!" at the barking dog was soon followed by a woman coming up the track, followed several minutes later by her rather less fit husband labouring up the track behind her. I thanked my stars I only had to go down! After a quick chat (during which time I managed to also make friends with the vocal Storm) we each went our separate ways. It took longer than expected to reach the Tokomaru River, but fortunately the track going up the river valley was no worse than expected, undulating along the river bank and only steep in a very few places. The track crosses out of DOC land onto private property and back at one point, just before a small clearing called Burtton's Whare (where Burtton's house used to be). The trail notes say this is a good place to stop for lunch, probably I decided to stop you from making use of the obvious picnic table out the front of a privately owned bush hut on private land on the opposite bank of the river! No fair.
It was just before reaching this small and uninspiring little clearing that I had a rather unusual encounter. I was still within earshot of the river when I came to a bend and spotted something moving through the bushes ahead--a big something. I stopped dead and peered until I realised it was a deer, specifically a doe, standing on the track, just around the next corner. She was standing alert, moving her head slowly from side to side; probably it was only the sound of the river below that had prevented her from hearing me from half a mile off and scarpering. As it was she just stood there, so after a few moments I began to inch forward, taking a step, as quietly as I could, every time her head was turned away. In this way I managed to close the gap...one more step would see me step out from behind the bush on the corner of the track that separated us each from full view of each other. I paused for a minute, and to my utter astonishment the deer, far from sniffing me out and leaping away into the trees, lay down, right there, on the side of the track! In the process she turned her head and looked right at me. I didn't move, but surely a deer would be able to tell a person from a tree at 3m?! It was then that it occurred to me that this doe, as remarkable as it might seem, was blind.
I took a cautious step forward into full view. She heard my step and the squeak of my pack and jumped to her feet, but they'd been very quiet noises among the many other quiet noises of the forest and the rushing of the nearby river, and she still didn't flee. In this way I stepped, carefully and quietly nearer and nearer until I was level with her. Quite frankly I was astonished she couldn't smell me! I could have reached out and touched her...but I didn't, thinking I didn't want to get kicked by a startled deer. I could have tried to sneak past, but for whatever reason (after taking loads of photos) I talked to her. In a very quite and soothing voice I said (stupidly you may think so) "Alright deer, go on now". Obviously this wasn't what she had expected and she swung her head round to look right at me, ears flicking, listening intently. It was only after I took another few steps, saying again softly "go on now" that she finally decided I was something worth running from and stumbled off blindly into the bushes. I hoped she didn't trip on anything! Still, she seemed to be a fully grown doe with a full flank and a glossy coat, so she was obviously getting along just fine out here in the forest despite her disability. Curiously her eyes had not been white with cataracts like you might expect--there was only perhaps the smallest hint of a grey tinge to them--and they were both in tact and healthily watery. She looked to all intents and purposes like a perfectly healthy deer so I have no idea why or how she came to be blind, but I counted myself lucky to have come across her (and her lucky that I wasn't a hunter). (NB: a subsequent Google search doesn't appear to list blindness as a symptom of 1080 poisoning so I still have no idea how the doe came to be blind).
I mulled over my close encounter of the wild/feral kind as I had lunch in Burtton's clearing. I was just packing up when a trio of mountain bikers came up the track. I was quite surprised to see mountain bikers on a track as narrow and well, bushy-walky, as this one, and sure enough while the young guy seemed to take it all in his stride (cycle?) the elder two men (Dad and Dad's friend?) admitted they'd been doing a lot of bike walking along the way. This proved to be no understatement as, even though I let them go on ahead, within twenty minutes I'd caught them up, and walking up a steeper section of track they let me mission on past them. I told them to holler in plenty of time so I could leap out of their way when they caught me up...but they never did! Not until I stopped to refill my water bottles at a small stream and also went down to the river to rinse out my spare clothes. From here they led the way and I never saw them again as shortly the track became much easier to traverse and more bicycle friendly.
Apparently as you emerge from the track there's a stile and a cairn. I passed a stile leading to nowhere and the remnants of a stone monument with no plaque so I assume that was it. Beyond this the trail follows Tokomaru Valley Rd out through a forestry block. The road is lined with lots of brambles in places and I paused a while to stuff myself with blackberries. Near the intersection with Mangahao Rd I had a boots-off break under a tree. It was proving to be a hot afternoon and out from under the cover of the cool beech forest it was hot and sweat-provoking, even on so easy a track.
Setting off down the road again and turning up Mangahao Rd I collected a clean and newly-discarded Pump water bottle someone had dropped, thinking I was both doing my bit for keeping NZ green and giving myself an extra water vessel (since my hydration bladder seems to have developed an intermittent leak if I'm not careful about how I put my pack down).
I followed Mangamahao Rd up past a dam, passing only one solitary mountain biker, before diverting off up the Mangahao-Makahika Walking Track. There would definitely not be an mountain bikers up here. I was tempted to have another break, but decided to keep going as I intended to camp just a kilometre or so up the track, at the top of the first small ridge climb. Halfway up there was a unusually clear flat spot that looked like someone had camped there before (the leaves have a slightly more flattened appearance than others on the forest floor) and sure enough I found a discarded shoe lace amongst the leaves to one side. But the spot was shady in the lee of the hillside and I hoped that if I made the ridge I'd be able to make the most of the setting sun. After a climb that was a little bit more gruelling than I expected, though pleasant enough through native forest, I made it to the top of the ridge where a marker post indicated a sharp right hand turn in the track to follow the ridgeline. I however paused to eye a flat spot behind and to the left of the marker post. Up here there was still quite a bit of light, and the clearing looked plenty big enough to house my tent with room left over to lay out my things (if necessary and the fine weather allowed) and make dinner. While it might have been used for a campsite in the past it obviously hadn't been recently as numerous small saplings of various native plants were sprouting up through the leaf litter and had not be crushed. I felt bad crushing them, so instead I pulled them up and then replanted them nearby, I was in no hurry after all. A couple of ferns had large leaves protruding into the clearing so I cut the most invasive of these off and laid them down on the ground where I intended to pitch my tent. Finally I hauled a fallen log from one side of the clearing round to another where it formed a nice and surprisingly little seat out the front of my tent once it was pitched. All in all is was quite the perfect little spot and I enjoyed a relaxed cup of tea and dinner while listening to birdsong all around me. Finally as the light really began to fade I crawled into bed, feeling safe and happy up here among the birds and the trees. I was far enough away from the road that I wouldn't be able to hear any traffic, unlikely as it would be, and went to sleep in the knowledge that I was almost certainly outside the perimeter patrolled by any poacher-wary farmers!
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