This trek was about tracing the remaining sections of the buried water race. Did I manage to uncover more of it?
In this bush bash, I set out to explore the area between the first visible section of the water race and the scour pipe, a stretch that remained mostly unexplored by myself and dare I say anyone else on planet earth. While I had poked around this area before, I hadn’t walked it in one continuous trek from end to end.
Starting at the visible portion of the race, I followed it westward where it quickly disappeared underground. I was on the lookout for any exposed sections caused by water erosion or steep terrain that might have exposed other sections of the water race. The going was tough, as the landscape is essentially a steep hillside broken by occasional flatter terraces, but the whole area above the race is littered with lots of loose rocks which in turn has plants and trees growing atop.
I didn’t come across much, aside from a few suspicious hollows that turned out to be nothing. Then I spotted an old post embedded in the ground, standing beside what appeared to be an old cut track which was probably once part of a maintenance track for the water race. While it went westward, I could see it also looked like it went down the hill, so I followed it until I emerged onto a road.
I then returned to the post and it struck me that the post likely marked a section of the track where a fence or handrail once helped prevent falls. Continuing east along the track, I hoped the remaining section would reveal something more.
I pushed on and spotted part of a pipe lying on a flat section of the hillside, the same pipe I saw back in Bush Bash 40. I remembered what had happened here before: I’d stood on a wasp nest and been stung over 100 times. I paused, then cautiously continued towards the pipe, taking it one step at a time. I knew the nest was above the pipe, and I was coming from below, but I still took care. I reached the pipe, took a few photos, and carried on along the old track.
About a minute later, I found myself in a ditch curving around the hill from Scour Pipe. It dawned on me that this ditch is actually part of the old track. That led me to wonder: could the water race run beneath this track and ditch? I’d previously assumed it was higher up the hill, near where the Orongorongo pipeline runs, and that it passed beneath the nearby earth bridge. But perhaps the earth bridge only conceals the Orongorongo pipeline, and not the water race.
I continued past Scour Pipe and eventually made my way out of the bush. At this point, I’ve now walked the entire hillside along which the water race runs. Only one small section remains unexplored. So far, I’ve identified five sites where the buried water race is visible, either due to erosion exposing parts of it or through existing manholes that are covered in vegetation.
