| Leader | Mentor | Tail Ender | |
| Standards | Alan | Brent | Shirls |
| Alternates | Pip | Ali | Sally |
Distance 12.5km, elevation gain 640m, time 4 -5hrs
This is a popular tramp, which was missed last year due to poor weather, and 38 trampers signed up. However, unfortunately 3 withdrew at late notice for various reasons. Due to the distance to Hinewai, we had an 8am departure from Bishopdale with a pick up for others at Halswell.
President Jen had advised us that a viewing of a documentary titled “Fools and Dreamers” prior to this tramp, would be informative with regard to understanding the genesis of Hinewai and the work of its brilliant and somewhat eccentric kaiwhakahaere Dr Hugh Wilson.
While travelling in the bus to Hinewai, our club member, Bruce Hansen, who is a long-standing Trustee of the Reserve, gave us an informative background to the origins and development of Hinewai since its formation in 1987. A chance meeting of botantist Hugh Wilson and philanthropist, Maurice White, provided the spark which enabled it to get underway, with the purchase of 109 hectares of land. It was non-productive pasture covered in gorse and with Hugh’s idea of minimum interference and letting nature do the regeneration work, Hinewai now has 1600 hectares of regenerating native forest. While eradication of pests has been a big job and remains so, Hugh’s practice of allowing the gorse to grow and allowing nature to return its seedlings to the Reserve to be ‘nurtured’ by the larger gorse cover, has been very controversial. However he has proven that the native trees, in relatively short time, outgrow the gorse and kill it off, providing a wonderful forest floor nursery bed for seedlings. Local farmers and indeed the Environmental Council, with their noxious weed legislation, were not convinced early on and Hugh has fought many battles over the years and won. Hinewai today is the evidence that it works.
Alan and Jan B had done a prior walk to establish the best route for our groups and we all took off from the Long Bay Road carpark under grey skies and in a stiff, cool easterly. Some of the early gradients were quite steep and slippery and there were numerous falls as we made our way to Jules’ Knob for morning tea. Apparently this was named after famous Peninsula identity and rugby player, Jules Le Lievre. It was a rugged knob, worthy of its tough prop namesake.
Hinewai has an extensive network of tracks and we proceeded down Kereru Track towards Long Bay, encountering impresssive bird life. Continuous serenading by korimako was accompanied by aerial ‘attacks’ by squadrons of piwakawaka, scooping up the insects the group was disturbing. Nature has done a superb job of reestablishing the forest and there is a wide variety of NZ natives, from the podocarps to the smaller shrubs and bushes. There was some discussion about the food quality of the kawakawa leaves, with the suggestion that those with holes in them must be the most desirable since the insects found them so tasty.
Lunch was taken down on the beach, where a group of retired UC chemists were also having lunch. This stimulated a discussion about the fact that a number of our trampers could recite the Periodic Table. No competition with the chemists was contemplated!
The return journey started back the way we came, but we then diverged up the Valley Track, through many more hectares of this inspiring example of how nature can restore a forest, if left alone to do so. After the big climb up from the beach, we were all glad to see the Visitor Centre and Hugh’s house hove into view, with the bus just a bit further on.
Bruce dealt with a few more questions as the bus descended back into Akaroa and we passed Hugh, pushing his bike up the hill back to his beloved forest, of which he is so proud.
Text by Selwyn
