Attempt at full Turere Stream
Saturday 11 February 2006
The objective was to go down the full length of the Turere Stream to see what changes there had been since the storm of March 2005. I was thinking that maybe the log jams had been cleared out and the Turere was now flat shingle from end to end just as it was when I first did it.
No way! Yes, most log jams were now gone; but so has the shingle. The Turere is now basically one water-fall after another. Most streams entering the Turere now have a huge wide bed, even those that have hardly any water. And there are now more narrow gorges in the top section than what I remember. After the top section, the water- falls start. The stoat control people have put in marked tracks around the top few water-falls but I guess they got tired of that after a while.
The rain of the previous few days discoloured the water but was of no hinderence.
We had lunch at what I guess Colin refers to as Lake Turere then went on for another hour or so. We were expecting the water-falls to ease after Lake Turere and to some extent they did - they became less frequent and easier to sidle as the angle of the hill-sides eased. Come 2pm, we hit yet another water-fall and as 2pm was our pull-out time, and the Orongorongo was not in sight, we pulled out.
I was pretty certain that we were near the bottom of the stream, though Ken thought otherwise. After all we had been going for 5 hours. I was therefore expecting to hit the McKerrow track some 2 kms south of McKerrow. Surpise is an understatement when we hit the ridge 10 minutes north of McKerrow. My guess is that we left the river at round about 762857.
Susan and I now have a problem; we have not completed the Turerre. So next trip we lead will be the Turere from the bottom.
For the record, Ken, Susan and I were on the trip. We left the cars at 7:30am, pulled out of the stream at 2pm and got back to the cars at 5pm. The climb out of the stream was pretty awful - very steep and dense veg - especially Kiekie. Once we got onto the spur proper at about the 500m contour, the gradient eased, the bush opened up and travel became easier and faster.
David Castle