Today, I set out with no clear objective, but believe I found the original entrance to the Old Whakanui Track in Reservoir Valley.
In Bush Bash 80, I located what I believe may be the original entrance to the Old Whakanui Track. According to an older Wainuiomata resident, before or around the 1970s the original entrance climbed directly from Reservoir Valley, rather than from Nikau Creek Gully, which is the entrance I was familiar with while growing up in the area. That older route was eventually abandoned after gorse took over the hillside and the newer entrance being cut in Nikau Creek Gully.
I headed to what I call Nikau Creek Plateau, a scenic flat area above Nikau Creek that is covered in native bush and makes for a pleasant walk. I had not set out specifically to find the original entrance to the old track; I was simply exploring the area more generally. As I worked my way around the spur to exit Nikau Creek Valley, I decided to follow a small creek up the hillside.
Higher up, the creek became very shallow and split into two small, open gullies. I first explored the gully to my left, but it ended abruptly in thick regenerating bush at the spine of a spur. I returned to the split and followed the right-hand gully instead, but it was much the same. I then headed for the spine of the spur to my right and almost immediately realised there was an old track there. It was still walkable in sections, and white ribbons were tied to old branches, some still standing and others fallen.
I reasoned that this had to be part of the original entrance to the Old Whakanui Track. Although I had explored part of this route during my previous bush bash, I had only found the track further up the hill. This time I was lower down and closer to where the actual entrance might have been. I decided this would become the mission for the day: to see whether I could locate the exact entrance below.
First, however, I needed to climb higher to confirm whether this route connected with the track I had walked during the previous bush bash. After a while, I realised I had seen the section I was on before, although not during the my prior bush bash, as I was not yet high enough on the hillside. I had actually stumbled across this same section during Bush Bash 66, when I followed a tributary up the steep hill east of Nikau Creek Gully. At the time, I had earmarked it for further exploration, but had completely forgotten about it until now.
I continued upward to see whether it would connect with the same track, or at least the same section of track, that I had located in the previous bush bash. It did. From there, the task was to head back downhill as far as possible and see exactly where the track emerged in Reservoir Valley. This is where things became a little confusing.
As I approached the lower end of the track, it seemed to curve around the spur, where there was a distinctive bench cut. That route took me back into Nikau Creek Gully, which did not fit the description of a track descending directly into Reservoir Valley. I walked around the spur and returned to where I had started this part of the walk. There, I found a white ribbon on a tree lower down. I reasoned that the original track may actually have gone straight up the spur, despite the gorse and other regenerating plants now covering the area.
I pushed into the dense bush, getting stabbed by needles here and there, and eventually came back to the bench cut. Before reaching it, I also saw another ribbon, which made me think the mission had been accomplished. I believe I had located the lower approach to the old track.
So what was the bench cut, then? It may have come later, possibly when geological survey tracks were cut through the area. It may also have followed the old Whakanui Track entrance for part of its route before ending.
With that, I headed back to the car via the Wainuiomata Garden of Remembrance and called it a day.
