Harringtons(Griffin Crk)Track

We got up early and drove over Arthurs Pass to Harrington Creek, near Wainihinihi. We were on another track project weekend.

Farmer Patrick Fitzgerald had been getting a bit unhappy about trampers and hunters climbing over his fences and trapsing across his paddocks to get to the track to Griffin Creek, which started at the back of his place. Honora learned this when she went to talk to him about the best way to get to the track. Unfortunately she found herself on the receiving end of all the things he'd been storing up for the people who didn't ask. It was a bit unfair.

Anyway, we're trying to encourage more people to tramp the Rocky-Griffin Creeks circuit, which would make his problem worse. So we decided we'd cut a track on the other side of his fence-line. Then no-one would need to cross his paddocks and everyone would be happy (maybe everyone except Dave Henson, but that's another blog).

We parked at the lay-by just east of Harrington Creek and walked to the section of old closed highway on the west side of the creek. This old bit of roadway is now part of the farm. Where it reaches the fenceline alongside the creek, there's a very old Forest Service sign which announces access to Griffin Creek. A car was parked there.

From here people usually just climbed the fence and walked the 800 m across farm paddocks, climbing other fences along the way, to the start of the Griffin Creek track.

I know there are a rare few who've pushed through the gorse and walked up the log and boulder strewn creekbed. Perhaps these are the ones Freud described as 'anal retentives' (people whose lives are characterised by the unnatural pleasure they get from complying with rules - probably from domineering fathers). Whatever... it's hard to criticise people for using common sense here.

So we wanted to make sure people preferred using our track rather than walk across an open field of grass. That meant we had to meet a fairly high standard in making it convenient, direct and easy to walk on, as well as enjoyable and satisfying.

At the start there was thick gorse and blackberry along the fence-line. We got stuck into this right away. It wasn't very pleasant work as we didn't have the best gloves or tools for dealing with the stuff. But eventually we were through and could take a look at the rest of the route.

Beyond here was the bush proper. We looked forward to getting into that. It's not that we preferred chopping into native vegetation than noxious weeds. It's just that we knew it would need a lot of thought and planning to sort out, metre by metre, the best line for this brand-new track. It was going to be a lot more interesting.

We walked the whole 800 metres a few times, forcing and crawling our way through in places, just to establish the general line. On the general line we identified 15 separate zones which each had its own particular problem to deal with as we came to it.

• The first zone was the gorse and blackberry along the fence.
• Next was an open section - a freebie.
• The third zone was a grove of tall intertwined coprosma shrubs and tree ferns blocking the way along the fence. Taller forest commenced away to the left here so the track needed to swing left in the coprosma toward it.
• The taller forest zone had more tree ferns, hanging branches, large obstructing trunks and broken ground to lay the track through.
• Fifth was the exit from the taller forest through tangles of supplejack.
• Next was a choke point between a corner of the fence and the terrace edge.
• Beyond this was a very thick stand of tree ferns.
• The eighth zone was an easier stretch through tall open forest with clear ground. This needed to swing round toward the river.
• The nineth was to locate an easy exit zone into the creekbed.
• The creekbed zone had a flood channel blocked by logs and smaller vegetation.
• The eleventh was to locate the best exit out of the creekbed onto the terrace.
• Twelth was to create an opening through the dense growth of the forest margin.
• The next zone was a lengthy stretch through tall mixed forest with many tree ferns. This section had to bring the track to a convenient place to climb onto a higher terrace.
• The fourteenth was locating a critical 3 metre climb up the vertical terrace edge.
• From the top was a lengthy zone thickly covered with tree ferns.
• The final zone was joining the new track to the existing one and blocking off the original exit toward the farmland.

We worked until 7.00 pm, getting as far as the exit down the bank into a dry sandy-bottomed flood channel.

Then we headed back to Arthurs Pass to spend the night at the tramping club lodge. On the way we stopped at the DoC office to see who's car it was parked at Harrington (I'd noticed the stub of a DoC intentions form on the dashboard). We were glad to see it was Michael Ostash's vehicle. We hoped we'd be able to catch up with him when he came out.

At the club lodge Honora got the pot-bellied stove going to make the place a bit more comfortable, and then we went for tea at the Chalet. When we got back I dragged an easy chair in front of the fire and settled down for some reading. I remembered that being Simon's favourite spot all those years ago.

It was raining at the pass in the morning, but the forecast was for the showers to ease off at mid-day. When we got back to Harrington it was pouring down, but by the time we'd changed into our work gear it had eased off.

We walked along our completed section of track - it looked really good - and set to work. Later in the morning we moved up to the junction with the Griffin Crk track to work backwards from there. It was lucky we did as we hadn't been there long when Michael appeared. We had quite a long chat. He was able to tell us some of the background to the Griffin Creek hut's famous decor, craftworks and other improvements.

The sun came out as Michael headed off, and the weather was very pleasant for the rest of the day. We finished cutting the track then did a couple of walk throughs nailing up red permolat markers. At the carpark I put up a couple of DoC triangles to make the 'anal retentives' feel ok about walking on it.

It was 6.00 pm when we headed away. I think we both felt pretty good about what we'd achieved. I still feel amazed how easy it is to make a worthwhile difference.

On the way home we stopped at Paddy's for a meal. Norm and Enid Hardie called in too so that made for another pleasant encounter.

We were home at 10.00 pm, mission accomplished.