Tokorangi Pa

By Maurice Boniface

20th August 2007

There were only five of us again on Monday but, as usual, we had a great walk. We all met at Sig and June's and the others got into my car - there was Ken, Neil, Dave and Sig. We went to Pyes Pa Road but on the way we did a little Tiki Tour to the new Grace Hospital which was opened the day before - in the newspaper they said they we were going to trial a robot machine which the surgeon guides to do the operation instead of doing it himself. In a prostate operation, instead of having a 20 cm incision it only needs a 1cm one! We came out on Pyes Pa Road and drove to Rotorua to the Redwood Forest Centre car park. I will attach a photo of the Giant Family that greets you as you turn into the car park. As you can see they are larger than life when you compare them to the car on the roadway - of course, they are carved out of timber! 

This is a great place for tourists and there was a group of Japanese people walking across the car park shouting to each other in Japanese as they walked across to their bus. Ken said we would do a loop through the Redwoods as a warm up before we started to go upwards! As you know Redwoods are the tallest trees in the world, a notice we came across later said that the taller ones in this forest were over 65 metres which is only half as high as the tallest one in California. Someone asked Dave why some of them were much bigger than others when they would have been planted at the same time and he said they were like people some were dominant and grew bigger and others became weaker and often died. In this forest there are signs with arrows of different colours and on this loop we were following the blue arrows. It crosses other roads and we noticed that for part of it they had put down a new gravel layer and when it ended we found out why - with all the rain we have had, the old path was pretty wet. We got back to the main track and finally came out to a grassy area which looked quite familiar - some years ago when we were here, we came across a film unit doing a sequence for a film they were making and there were gorillas and people running around in amongst some of the trees nearby. 

On one side of the clearing was a high rocky cliff with a lookout at the top and that is where were heading - but not just yet, because it wasn't far off ten o'clock and we saw some rocks which were just the right height to sit on and in the sun, so we downed packs and stopped for morning tea. I rang Mum and it was very clear - she hadn't started hers yet. After our break we set off up the steps which would lead us up to the lookout. We took our time so it wasn't too bad and the track was quite good. When we got to the lookout we could see down to where we had been at morning tea time and looking out over the trees we could see Lake Rotorua, with the sun shining on it and no wind, it looked very peaceful. We continued on the track which was still climbing (we finally reached 530 metres above sea level, whereas at the car park it was 210). The track we were following is called the Tokorangi Pa track and has a purple arrow on the sign board but we kept coming across green arrows painted on the ground in the middle of the track - we presume it was for some race or something they had had through here. We came across an old tree stump which had a sign on it saying that the Radiata Pines in the grove we were walking through had been planted in 1958 so were nearly 50 years old, these days they mill them at 25 years - Dave said if they left until this age they would be much better timber. with more heart in them. I had stopped to take some photos so had to run to catch up to the others and Ken said he thought I was running to get a photo of them from the front instead of the usual ones taken from the back - so I obliged and ran a bit further and took one of them all smiling! 

We came to a corner with a sign Tokorangi Pa Road so we weren't far from the old Pa site - actually when we got there we didn't go and look at it because it is all overgrown and there's only a bit of earthworks to identify it. A little past there we came to a clear spot and we could see the lake again with Mokoia Island in the middle and Mt.Otanewainuku on the skyline. We have been there on quite a few occasions - it is the highest point between Tauranga and Rotorua. Looking over to the right we could see Rotorua Airport which is right beside the lake. The track then heads down and comes out at a water reservoir which is part of the town's water supply network. Beside it was another smaller water tank which had pipes going in near the top and another one going out at ground level. Part way up it there were wooden battens at intervals all around it held there by belts which had metal adjusters to tighten them - it reminded us of the whalebone corsets women had worn in bygone ages! We had a look around and noticed a sign "Water ->" pointing away from the tanks! Further over was another sign which told you about the Waste Water Effluent system whereby instead of putting it in the lake as they used to, it is now treated and sprayed on various area in the forest. As it was now nearly midday we walked back to the water tank and went around to the lea side of it because there was now a cool wind blowing and sat in the sun looking out towards the lake. I rang Mum and got a good signal then sent my text messages and got replies from them all. After lunch we set off on the second half of the track which goes down some steps and along a path which went onto a well made bridge which had a pipe at one end with a tap on it which you just pressed to get a drink - like the ones they have in school playgrounds for children to get a drink. The track comes out onto another forest road going along a valley which Ken said is called The Wash and has something to do with the eruption of Mt Tarawera in the 1860's.

We came to a spot where there had been a slip on the bank to our right and further along was a sign to warn you that there was a risk of falling rocks, a bit late for the ones going our way around. Over to our right we could see plantations of two different sorts of trees, I think Dave said one was Larch and the other was Spruce. In the early 1900's they planted all sorts of varieties of trees in this area to see which was the best one to grow for timber and they finally decided in Pinus Radiata so that is what they have concentrated on. The track then turns off the road and goes down into the bush to a stream - there was a dead Possum in it with its head missing - something must have eaten it. We found there was a path down by the stream and one a bit higher up, the lower one was apparently for mountain bikers. The track comes out onto another open area, but just before it we came across a tree with a big bulge at the bottom of the trunk which looked like a wart - Ken called it a carbuncle. Dave said its proper name is a burl but carbuncle is more descriptive - he said they make good table tops as the grain is very wavy and looks quite attractive. The track now dodges onto all sorts of roads and tracks, at one stage we could see Waipa Sawmill in the distance, and all along the various roads there were cycle tracks off to the side along which they have races - they have all sorts of names like The Tickler, The Pig Track, Soak Hole, Grinder, Double Down and they had various grades on the signs, the last one was grade 6 and they were warned not to attempt it unless they were very experienced. We came across an enclosure with two big pipes which came out of the ground and it looked as though they had been cut and sealed off then a smaller pipe came out of one of them and went through a valve back into the other and there was a notice warning you not to drink this water. We presumed it had something to do with the waste water scheme but what it was for we couldn't imagine. A bit further on was a big grassed area with a building in the middle and over a little further were two ponds inside a big enclosure with plastic sheeting for their base and steps down to the water. There were ducks swimming in them so the water must be O.K. for them.

We were getting back towards the other tracks now and there were roads going off in all directions with names like Radio Hut Road and Katori Road, we even came to the start of the Tokorangi Pa Road, part of which we had been on earlier. We had met all sorts of people on the various tracks, some walking some running and some on bikes - there are even ones for horses but we didn't see any today - they are certainly are all used a lot. We were now near to the car park but Ken said we would go on one of the Redwood Tracks to finish with so we went along it and finished up at the car park at 3 p.m. just in time for afternoon tea after which we set off for home - I got there at a quarter to five.

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