By Maurice Boniface
26th April 2010
Ken said he would like to go up Thompsons Track this week because it is a long time since we have been up to the top (it is 10 years since I was there) and it has been pretty dry for quite a while. This road was one of the first made across the Kaimais from the Waikato and they used to bring the cattle over to the Bay of Plenty this way. However nowadays it is used by four wheel drive off road vehicles, dirt motor bikes and mountain bikes as a leisure pursuit and consequently it has become a real ordeal to get vehicles along it. As you can see from the photo it is a mud bath in places!
I picked up Graham and Terry, then we met Ken in Waihi Road and he came with us. We drove to the car park at the end of Thompsons Track Road and put on our gear. There was a ute in the car park with a couple of dog kennels on the back and a sign that it was for sale. We set off up the track and immediately you come to a pool of water which is much smaller than it used to be because DOC has cut a channel out to one side of it. The next one was more like a swamp and we made our away around the edge of it. From there on it was a series of these great big mudholes of varying size and shape - as you can see sometimes there was quite a bit of room done the side to walk along, while on other we had to cling to the trees on the side to get past them. In places we had to leap across gaps with a big drop down either way. At times you couldn't avoid the mud and just had to walk through it. The hardest part was to try and not slip because once you started you would probably end up in the mud bath. You couldn't tell if the mud was firm underneath or not. At one place it looked quite firm but when I poked my stick into it it went down quite a way! After a while Graham took the lead and had a great time finding the easiest path along the edge. At one spot we had to walk up a steel bar and I was apprehensive in case I overbalanced! After a while we could see out and there was a peak above the trees which Ken said was Mt Eliza where there used to be a goldmine many years ago. We have been there several times but not today. Shortly we came to the turnoff to the track that goes up to the mine and there was a sign which told those coming out that track that the car park was 40 min ->. As we walked along we marvelled at how the vehicles managed to get through some of the holes because the mud was very soft and some of the holes had vertical drops into them - to get out they would have to winch themselves out. Some of the trees had rings around their trunks where ropes have been used to pull themselves out. At one point there was a piece of broken tow rope lying on the track we were walking on. At another Terry dug a steel hook out of the mud which must have been on the front of the vehicle and had been pulled off in their efforts to get out. In some places there are big areas with various mud pools all over it which gave them a choice as to which way they went. These were quite hard to get around because they were so swampy. After one of them we came to an old arm chair on the side of the track so Terry sat in it for my photo. In one very muddy part we could see where the wheel of a bike had got to the middle of the soft mud and he had had to get off because he was stuck! At another you could see the tyre marks of a mountain bike - he must have found the going pretty tough. At various places there were storm water pipes going under the track taking the water off to the side and they (we presume it must have been the Off Road Club) had put sand bags around the end of the pipe so the vehicles don't break it. After particularly muddy stretches, you would come across great clods of mud on the track which had come of the vehicles. When we came across small streams across the track we would stand in them to wash our boots in the clear water and get rid of some of the mud, but they soon got muddy again. At a minute to ten we were on the side of a big long mud hole and I said "Is this the morning tea place?" However a few minutes later Graham found a spot where we could sit on the side of a bank with our feet on the track and enjoy a bit of relaxation. I tried to ring Mum but my phone said 'searching for network'.
We continued on and again marvelled as to how the vehicles stayed upright because on some of the corners one side of the track was much higher than the other - they must be well tied in! As we got higher we came across places where we could see out into the Bay of Plenty and the harbour with the hill at Bowentown on the skyline. There were several places where there had been slips but the road had been repaired. Looking out over the trees we got a great view of some very tall Pongas which gave the bush a very exotic look. At one place there was some very blue looking clay which looked quite unusual. Ken had been looking out for the entrance to a side track which is a steep short cut up to the North South Track. Eventually we came across some pink ribbons tied to two trees and a plastic bag and a yellow ribbon so we presumed this is where it starts - not that we wanted to go up it! We passed another spot where we got a much better view of the harbour and Matakana Island and two minutes later we got to the summit with a great view out across the Waikato and we had a good time looking at the plains below us. The vehicles have had a great time up here because it is all dry and they have cleared a big area to run around in and off to our left there are several dirt tracks going up the hill that side. To our right was a track going up a small hill which we presumed was the North South track while just below it is the continuation of Thompsons Track which goes down the other side of the Kaimais. We were surprised there was no DOC sign up here but we presumed they thought that a sign would soon be knocked over by the vehicles tearing around here. We climbed up the North South Track and found a lovely grassy area in the sun and out of the wind with a great view of the plains below so we sat down for lunch. I tried to ring Mum but couldn't get through so I composed a text and that went no trouble which is very strange, but I only got two replies.
After lunch we decided to go up the dirt tracks to see what was up there. It was quite a climb and as we were going along we heard someone whistling and when got up further up, there was a chap sitting by the trees in a grassy area with a small motor bike beside him! He said that he was waiting for his friend who had dropped his phone further back along the North South Track when they stopped for lunch and had gone back to look for it. They had come up from the Waikato side and we told him that no way would he be able to go down the way we had come up because his bike was too small! (He called it a 'Post Office bike'!) He said he had gone part way down and had turned around and come back again. He had a big pack with him and said he often comes up here to hunt deer. He had whistled out to us hoping we had a vehicle and could go and pick up his friend! We turned around and went back the way we had come. As we went down we came to a place where we could see a bike had turned around and presumed it was his tyre marks. We negotiated all the mud holes in reverse but at least it was going down, because we had climbed from 230 metres above sea level to 500. We came across a small Rata Tree with its bright red flowers on it and eventually reached the place where the Mt Eliza Track branched off. Ken said that we could go along this track because it will take us back to the car park and we won't have to go up to the mine because that track branches off this one, so we set off down this one. It was great to be back on a bush track and not have to contend with all that mud but it zig zagged down very steeply and I was thinking this means we will have to come up again eventually.The track was quite good but pretty overgrown with ferns etc. We came to a stream crossing but it wasn't very wide and was quite good to get across, however the track went up through some steep boulders on the other side. We came to the place where the Eliza Mine Track turns off and goes straight up! There was a DOC sign which said it was 40 min to the Mine, 40 min to the car park, 2 hrs to the North South Track, 3 hrs to the Motutapere Hut and 5 hrs to the Tuahu Track. We continued on towards the car park. We came to another stream crossing and DOC had put rocks right across to walk on which is most unusual. They had also cleared and widened the track and put in gutters to drain away the water so from here on the track was great although it was fairly steep and we were feeling pretty tired by this time because we had been on the go for seven hours. Ken asked me if I had seen the Puriri flowers on the track and when I said 'no', Terry gathered a few and made a little posy for me to photograph. We were pleased to get back to the car and have afternoon tea, then set off for home which I got to by twenty to five. | 
