Sunday 10 February 2019

Leader: John Rowland

On 15 January the Rowland siblings (John, Christine and Sandra) went off to ‘The Forks’ to recce John’s upcoming Roaring Meg trip for the club. The idea was to do this trip in a clockwise direction starting off up the Fenceline track from Otaki Forks before turning off the Pukeatua track, dropping down the spur and marking a nice, easy drop off into the stream.

There were a few false starts with John saying “I don’t want to end up too far down and dropping off to the left like Solly and I did last time – got into horrible stuff”. Soon we committed to our route and ribbons were tied on the trees. Steeper and steeper and more and more slippery it became, with me falling over on numerous occasions. These hunter types are so good at moving through, over, under anything at all while I am scrambling around in the undergrowth trying to keep life and limb together.

Almost into the creek bed and Christine is calling to John. “You HAVE to come back and help me – there is NO way I can get down there”. Geez, I thought, if she can’t get down how in begeezes am I going to! However, his shoulder makes quite a good ledge for a boot and off we went again. Next thing I was tangled up in vines with my legs jammed under me and extricating myself involved nasty encounters with bush lawyer! With the behind ripped out of my shorts and a lost hat the river was a welcome sight for a lunch break.

Off we strode down the stream with gnarly sidles around log jams and a couple of swims through pools. A confused eel wasn’t too sure where to go as we splashed past his log and a panicked duck dived to the bottom trying to avoid us. At last, the Arcus Dam, but how to get around it? Out away from the creek we went as we climbed up onto the logged area and plodded around to the emergency access track taking us down to emerge not far from the dam again but on the downriver side. Just a little road-walk now back to the car and home after a 9-hour day. We had recce’d where not to go.

I wasn’t sure I wanted to go on the actual trip day, February 10th, but when John said he and Solly had found a way around the dam and that we would walk in an anti clockwise direction I tagged along. It was a lovely day; the creek was a little lower and the bush pretty, healthy and lush. Setting off from the old carpark before the Roaring Meg we were soon at the dam, crossing it and clambering around to where we could descend back into the creek. A knotted rope was a help in getting down this part. It was a very pleasant walk up stream with just a couple of scrambles over logs. Lunch was in the creek bed a few hundred meters lower than where we had emerged on our recce before climbing back up through the bush to pick up our marked line to the Pukeatua track.

Clear views of the tops greeted us and then down to squeeze everyone in Neville’s vehicle saving a walk back to the other cars. A very nice day was had with a pleasant group of Parawai members.

The Arcus dam was built in the 1990’s for power generation. It is a small earth dam and spillway. The power station, which was just below the road bridge, was destroyed in a flood in 1998. The dam is maintained by the landowner and a koha box is at the gate to help with the costs. See their Facebook page Historic Arcus dam track for contact details.

Those on the trip were:

John Rowland, Sandra Rowland, John Glover, June Shelton, Neville Grubner, Penny Currier