Sentinel Rock Lookout

6th August 2007

by Maurice Bonifac

At last - we were able to go out tramping again! Actually the weather report for Monday was for heavy showers and thunder in the afternoon. Ken had wanted to go to Rotorua and do one of the walks in the Redwood Forest area but wasn't keen to go there if it was going to be a thunderstorm! I suggested that we go to the Sentinel Rock Lookout which isn't a very long walk. He thought that was a good idea so that is where we went. I went to his place and picked up him, John and Neil and we drove to Hot Springs Road and to the Tuahu Pack Track car park at the end of it. 

There was no wind and the sun was shining so we set off in high spirits. There was an old van parked by the track entrance with a young chap beside it. He said he was from Germany and he had slept the night there. He was going to drive over to the Waikato and go up to the Wairere Falls - much easier than going up the Tuahu, along the North South Track to the top of the Falls! There was a notice on the Tuahu Track signboard saying that the other end was closed because they were logging pine trees over there. When we got onto the track we found that someone had cleared out the drain and put soil onto the track and after all the rain we have had it was very muddy indeed! We had to try and walk along the edge of the track because the middle was too soft. Ken rang me later that night and said he had been talking to his friend Colin who had been up the Tuahu last Wednesday with one of the Tauranga Tramping Club groups and they had found it just the same. However, further up the track they had come across a group of 35 young people from overseas with a DOC chap in charge of them. They come to count trees and do track maintenance and they had been cleaning out the drain along the side of the track and throwing the stuff onto the track! Ken said that when they upgraded the Homunga Bay Track, it was soft and muddy but now it is fine so we expect this one will be the same. When we came to the place where a small stream runs across the track on a hard rocky surface we found that a long concrete slab had been installed there and a channel cut in the rock which goes under the slab which takes all the water in normal circumstances.. There was another channel at the other end and if those two aren't enough then the surplus water will run over the top of the slab - very ingenious - a very cheap bridge! 

Shortly we came to the junction to the big Kauri so we went up the steep track. We went onto the platform and looked at it which we have done many times before. The sign says that it is 12.8 metres up to the first limb and it has a diameter of 2.7 metres. We walked along the other way until we came to the sign which says "Sentinel Rock Lookout 1hr 30 min - View of Sentinel Rock and surrounding rugged Kaimai Range. Due to hazardous land subsidence there is no access to top of Sentinel Rock." For which I am duly thankful. I have been up there a few times but found climbing up a rock face with hardly anything to hang onto and visions of what could happen if I slipped is not my favourite occupation. I remember the first time I went up was with Ivan and I didn't enjoy my lunch on the top because of the thought of having to come down the same way! The track from the sign is a comparatively new one - the old one is much steeper at the start then this one, but this one is bad enough. I was quite pleased that we went at a slow steady pace after having not been out for five weeks. Ken is very good at setting a pace which suits the ones in the group. The track levelled off for a while then got steep again for a while. I told them that last time we were here, four years ago, I was with Dave and he said "I thought you said it was only steep at the beginning!" It is amazing how you forget what places are like. He told me that he had been hunting down to Taumaranui and had got two forty pound Captain Cookers so his freezer was full of pork. He also said he liked eating octopus which get caught on his fishing line. He skins them, minces up the flesh and makes them into fritters. He said they taste something like whitebait - when I told Mum she said that would be alright as long as you didn't know where they came from! He only takes the small ones because he tried to catch a big once when he was snorkeling and it put its tentacles around his neck and he thought it was going to pull his breathing tube out of his mouth! It is amazing how much the bush changes as you go along, at one stage you will be going through thick undergrowth then suddenly it opens out and you could be in a grove of nearly all Punga Trees. At ten past ten we came to the clearing where we always have morning tea. I rang Mum and it was very clear. It was nice to sit down in the sun out of the wind.

Afterwards the track again went upwards at a steep angle but we didn't go too fast so it wasn't too bad but I must admit I was feeling my lack of fitness. We talked about all sorts of things - at one stage we got onto the subject of an insect called a "Penny Doctor" Ken said that when they were young they used to put a straw down the hole these insect dig in the earth. The insect was supposed to grab the end of it and you could pull them out of their burrow but he said he never got one. Why they are called by this name no-one seems to know so Neil is going to put a question in the Forest and Bird newsletter he is editing and see if anyone can answer it. The track levelled off but then got steeper again and we were quite glad when we came out into the open at the Lookout. There in front of us was a panorama of the Kaimais right along the skyline going both ways. In the foreground, right in front of us, was Sentinel Rock. I will attach a photo of us looking at the sight. The top of the Kaimais is on the skyline but just in front of it you can see a rocky peak with vegetation going up the sides but it is bare near the top. You can see the back of the heads of Ken and Neil  as they looked at it. The track to it used to go down into a gully in front of us then up on the left side of it. There used to be a fence across the track to stop you going down but someone has pulled out the posts and left the cross bars on the ground. I got out my binoculars and Ken found the site of an aluminium ladder on the skyline which goes down a particularly steep bit on a track up there. He and I have been on it and he said there is a track from there right back to Sentinel Rock. Along the top we could see Abseil Peak, Twin Peaks and Calvary Peak. Just to the right of us there was a tree which showed just how strong and constant the wind is up here - the top of it was bent towards the right just like an upside down "L". I had been telling them that last time my altimeter said it was 530 metres above sea level up here but today it said it was 565! They all said that the top must have risen higher in the intervening years - more likely it was the effect of the approaching Front! After having a good look all around we turned around and made our way down all the steep bits we had clambered up, making sure we didn't slip. I didn't have my stick with me and once I grabbed some green vegetation and found it had some Bush Lawyer in the middle of it! Three of the thorns dug into my finger and did they bleed! However it stopped after a while luckily. Another time the bit of bush I was holding onto broke off so down I went! Fortunately it was a soft landing. Just before 12 Ken stopped and said this was a good place to stop for lunch so we all downed packs and got ourselves comfortable with a tree to lean on and got stuck in. I rang Mum and found she had started her lunch early too.

I sent my text messages and replies came in thick and fast. We were all wondering when this rain was going to come. Neil had heard a forecast just before he left home which said it would arrive at lunchtime but so far our luck had held. We put our raincoats on, just in case and set off down towards the Big Kauri, but stopped when we came to a place where Ken said we had branched off last time on a rough track to a few other big Kauris. We decided to go and have a look because it wasn't far. We had just got a little way up the track when there was a big clap of thunder so we thought that discretion was the better part of valour and turned tail and made our way back to the Tuahu Track. The rain came on in real earnest shortly after. We started back towards the car park, but part way along on our left was a post with a small box with a glass lift up lid on it but nothing in it, so what it was there for we couldn't fathom out. The rain continued and when we got to the car we found some shelter under the trees and took off our boots, put them in the car and set off for home. When we got to Ken's place the rain had stopped and the sun came out! However we were glad we had been able to get out even if only for part of the day, even so Neil said we had walked 9 kms as well as climbing to 565 metres! I got home a bit after 2 p.m. much to Mum's delight.