Okataina Outdoor Centre to Rotoiti

15th Septwember 2008

By Maurice Boniface

The weather report for Monday was for fine weather so Ken decided we would got to the Lake Okataina area again and see if we could find the other end of the track we went down a fortnight ago. He brought Dave to our place and I went with them to the Okataina Outdoor Centre car park. We put on our gear and set off on the Western Okataina Walkway towards Lake Rotoiti which is where the Walkway starts. Dave had his G.P.S. and showed us how it still had the walk we had done last time and where we had turned around.  He said that we were only about 900 metres from the track we were going on today so hopefully we would find where it came out onto it.  Ken was also keen to look for the end of the track we went down ten years ago which came out onto today's track also.  We walked along the edge of the big mown area around the Centre until we came to the sign 'Western Okataina Walkway - Rongomai Track - Ruato 1.5 hrs'   We thought you would just about have to run to get there in that time!   The track enters into the bush and we walked along enjoying the cool early morning air.   Ken said he thought the track we had come down ten years ago wasn't very far along here. We kept on looking along the left hand side of the track for any signs of it. Every now and then we would go into the bush on the side looking for it but there was nothing that looked like a track.  He thought the markers that were there then were plastic ribbon ones so we would be lucky to find any of those.  The track we were on was probably an old logging road and we came out into a clear area which is where they probably had a log sorting area.  We came to a junction with a sign saying that the track to the right went out to the Lake Okataina Road so we went down there to have a look.  We went back and started up the lip of the Patotara Crater.  This is the crater of an eruption that took place thousands of years ago and is now a huge circle of flat land covered in scrub with bush all around it coming down the lip which goes all around it (Its other name is 'The Bullring').  We walked along the top of the lip, crossed a huge slip which has been there for some time and eventually came out onto the road again.  There was a car parked there which turned out to belong to a hunter we met later.  By now it was twenty past ten - at the junction Ken had said "Its ten o'clock, shall we have morning tea here or at the Crater?"   When I said  "The Crater"  Dave felt my forehead and said "It feels a bit feverish!"  There were some short posts to sit on so we had a very pleasant stop in the sun.  I had rung Mum at the top of the lip and got through with no difficulty.

We made our way back to where the track goes down into the Crater.  I will attach a photo showing Ken and Dave nearly at the bottom of the lip.  We followed the track across to the other side where it enters the bush and goes up a gully. As we went across, Dave said that he thought the track we were on a fortnight ago looked as though it would come out somewhere near the left hand side of the crater and he kept looking over that way to see if there was a way it could come down that side of the lip.  We entered the bush and even though it was going up the gully it was still pretty rough going and I was pleased when we reached the top of it.  We came to a junction and Ken said the track to the left came out onto farm land.  Dave said he was pretty sure some of it has been planted in Eucalyptus Trees.  While we were talking a young Maori chap came along it and turned out to be the hunter whose car we had seen.  He had had no luck with his shooting.  He said that it was private land but he knows the owner who lets him go hunting there.  He did not know much about the tracks in the area.  We turned right and followed the track which runs a long way through the bush.   Some of it is pretty overgrown so we had to push our way through it and over fallen trees etc. It was just as well it was all dry because we would have got pretty wet otherwise.  It comes out into gorse and blackberry country and goes down an old logging road to the main road which runs along the shores of Lake Rotoiti.  There are several houses in the little bay.  We crossed the road and went down a track to a small sandy beach on the lake shore where there was an old boat shed.  We settled down in front of the shed door facing the lake and had our lunch.  I tried to ring Mum but found my phone had frozen so I couldn't ring or send any text messages - I had a quiet, restful lunch!   Ken had scraped his hand on something which made it bleed so he washed it in the lake.  There was no wind so it was lovely sitting there in the sunshine and looking at the lake while we ate.  Ken said there was a Trig Station on the top of the hills above the right hand end of the lake which has a marvelous view right down it, but it is a bit tricky getting up to it. 

After lunch we poked around and found an old boat stashed in the undergrowth by the trees but it looked as though it hasn't been used for many years.  We had a look at the houses on the other side of the road.  One of them had a water feature on its front boundary with a small rock wall and a half round corrugated sheet on the top which the water ran over and down the wall.  We started up the old logging road we had come down.   We came across a Tui having a great feed of nectar from the flowers on a Tree Fuchsia on the side of the track and was not the least perturbed by us having a good look at him.   The track continued up at a pretty steep rate and I was very glad when Ken and Dave stopped to look at a Bellbird who was making a great racket in a nearby tree - not at all like the notes I am used to hearing from one.  However I was very grateful for the rest.  We continued on upwards and I was very pleased when the track levelled out at the top. We saw a short length of wooden fence in the trees beside the track which didn't seem to serve any purpose and was just about falling over with age.  We returned through all the fallen trees and thick undergrowth back to the track we saw the hunter on so we went along it. At the end there was a fence with a gate in it which hasn't been used for many years and there were a couple of stands of Eucalyptus Trees with pretty rough country in between.  We came down the gully in much less time than we had gone up in the morning and crossed the Bullring crater with Dave talking about where the elusive track we had been looking for might come down.  We climbed up the track on the other side and the others waited patiently for me to catch up at times.  When we got to the clear spots we branched off to the right, looking for signs of a track but didn't find any and when we got into the bush we did the same.  Ken said to Dave that there was another track without any signs which came out onto pastureland so Dave said "Follow me" which we did and he led us to a definite track but which he said it went up the hill and into more bush so it wasn't the one that Ken was meaning. We continued on until we came to a track called Te Auheke and which leads to the Cascades and a small waterfall and as Dave had not been here before, we went and had a look at them.  The Cascades had quite a bit of water coming down and looked very beautiful.. We went on to the waterfall but it is very small and has a big tree trunk stuck in it so isn't much to look at.  We came out on to the Outdoor Centre grounds and got back to the cars just after 3 p.m.   We took off our boots and had afternoon tea.  Ken suggested I take the battery out of my phone and put it back again, which I did, after much fiddling around to get the cover off and the phone started working again!  However I couldn't use it there because there is no coverage so I rang Mum on the way home and told her what had happened.    I got there just after half past four.

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