Leaving a dull Christchurch morning behind, driver Jeff soon had us on the way for another fence-clearing operation, this time at Flagpole farm in the upper Selwyn catchment. President Jan had welcomed visitors: Jae Hyun, Chris H and Neville and we enjoyed chocky treats as a celebration of warren’s birthday.
Waikirikiri[river of gravel and stones] /Selwyn is part of Canterbury’s braided river system. It is usually a benign trickle most of the time but at the end of May this year all hell broke loose and the tranquil Waikirikiri became a raging torrent, wreaking havoc across farmland along its course. “We watched the swirling brown torrent rise pretty rapidly towards the house”, Cece told us, “And it got to within about 10 metres!” She said she was worried it had wiped out their big pond, but they have been lucky (at least the ducks were happy). Warwick said that the water had risen to such an extent that a little further down Flagpole Road (their only access), the water had reached the top of the fence posts and he only just got through at the last moment with the tractor.
Our task today, like that last time, is to clear as much debris as possible from the fence wires with grunt-work. Once we got our instructions from the boss, we broke into two groups: one to work on the homestead fences and a smaller team to head down the road to Warwick and Cece’s other farm.
The damage was much like it was at Coalgate but compounded by a heavy frost having frozen the detritus on the wires (at least in the shade). We all developed different techniques to achieve the same purpose: brute force, hammering, spade work, and so on but to keep slogging away meant that we kept warm and slowly the fencelines were looking much cleaner. A little humorous banter added to the camaraderie too. There was still going to be a lot of remediation needed; for example, Warwick told us that further up the Selwyn valley where we tramp, the prime flat paddocks where he grazed his cattle had been buried beneath about a metre of shingle. His access road there by the copper mine had also been scoured by the floodwaters.
After lunch, both groups joined forces in for a final push to clear as much of the remaining wires as possible in our time left then it was time to pack up and head for a most welcome afternoon tea (including some left-over club birthday cake).
Warwick said he was amazed that a bunch of older people had worked so hard and got so much done; and something maybe younger folk could learn from. Cold hands, gorse and blackberry prickles aside, for us the effort was worth the chance of payback for the privilege of being able tramp on such great country. Roll on the next adventure!
