The Mill to Moness Track was a track that connected the Sinclair family sawmill with their homestead, Moness.
The only known evidence of a track from the Sinclair sawmill to the Sinclair homestead, Moness, is visible in an 1880s photograph. The image was taken from The Rock / Moores Valley Road, looking towards what is now Richard Prouse Park, where the Moness homestead once stood. The track / road, can be seen near the bottom of the photo, running from left to right. The Wainuiomata River cuts through the track, likely at a ford crossing. As the track approaches the mill, it appears to climb a plateau at a gentle gradient suitable for horses or foot traffic. However, decades of erosion have caused a steep cliff to now dominate the eastern side of the Wainuiomata Stream. There’s also a boulder bank at the confluence, raising the possibility that the steeper part of the track in the picture was built using river boulders, or that the boulder bank itself is the elevated portion of the track that led up to the plateau. Perhaps years of flooded rivers have washed away soil and smaller stones and left a base of rocks behind?
The remaining part of the track is on the left side of the Wainuiomata River, so it is still accessible, although caution is needed to avoid blackberry and gorse. Reaching this section requires either crossing the river or descending steeply from the culvert at Moores Valley Road, then following the stream and making a crossing to avoid a deeper part of the stream where it meets the cliff.
In short, it is interesting to see an old track in a photo that was likely used by the Sinclair family and could even have been part of the wooden tramway that they built to transport logs to their mill. But going there today is not recommended as requires a lot of work with really nothing much to see.
