Karla and I travelled to Christchurch where we met up with Alan and from there we were off to Timaru. The next day, late afternoon, we arrived at the Ascot Park Hotel at Invercargill. Now I don’t usually mention commercial activities but the service here was very good. They followed Alan to the airport where he dropped off the rental car and ferried him back to the hotel. The next morning we were able to store out travelling gear at the hotel and then they ferried us, packs and all to the airport. More about the Ascot later! We were flying with Stewart Island

Ready to go: Invercargill Airport.

Flights and I think we piled in with our gear into a Cessna 185. Smallish, as we were to land on West Ruggedy Beach, Stewart Island, at low tide. The flight took about 25 minutes and it was quite a bit different to my first visit to the island in 1962.  The pilot then was Captain Fred Ladd who was quite well known at the time and had a good sense of humour too. A note from my diary at the time:

Capt Fred Ladd: Stewart Island, 1962.

“Safety belts please, could you fasten them yourselves. The hostess has slept in.” Captain Ladd, the pilot, climbs into his seat. “Number one rocket ignite, stand by to go into orbit.” But nothing happens. Finally after a plug in, the battery being flat, we taxi along the runway, turn around and take off.  We see the new ferry “Wairua” steaming for the island too. We waggle our wings “for good morning”. Cross over Horseshoe Bay and circle over Halfmoon Bay. “Stand by, we are about to come back to earth.” Come down onto the water and plough on and up onto the beach.

Preparing to land: West Ruggedy Beach.

On this occasion we landed on hard sand but first, the pilot flew over the beach, I guess to chase off any seals and such, swung into a tight turn, then he swooped down to a soft beach landing. After unloading our packs, and short run and the plane was gone. To silence. Alone. Well, so it seemed, even if the surf was breaking on the beach.

East Ruggedy Hut

We had about a three-quarter hour walk to the East

East Ruggedy hut.

Ruggedy Hut, our “hotel’ for the next few days. The hut was on the North West Circuit Track, a track that ran from Oban, around the coast on the northwestern side of the island, to Mason Bay. Then it cut through the centre of the island back to Oban. The hut nicknamed “The Ritz” has about 12 bunks and is set in amongst trees. Once we had settled in, we then walked down over some sand hills to the beach.

Kiwi footprints.

We saw Kiwi footprints in the sand but plentiful sandflies were about too, so keep moving! Early the next morning, Alan shook my leg, “Hey, there’s kiwis running around just outside the hut.” Three in fact. Rustling in the Blechnum discolour ferns that spread out under the trees like a 12 inch thick carpet. One races across the path to the toilet closely followed by another. It’s still quite dark although light enough to easily see but not so for taking photos. The ISO is upped to 4000 so the photos are not the best. The kiwis crossed the track, back and forth a number of times and a couple of times past by only by a foot or so. I guess the resident kiwis were chasing an intruder to their territory. Many of the blechnum ferns had 600mm trunks on them, making them look like mini tree ferns. It drizzled most of the day and we only had two others in the hut that night. One was cadging food. She was on a 6 to 7 day walk and had only brought cut sandwiches. Obviously, after 3 to 4 days the bread would start to go mouldy surely?

Heading for Big Hellfire Hut.

The way to Big Hellfire Hut.

Big Hellfire Hut
We left East Ruggedy Hut just before 7am for the walk back to the beach where we were dropped off, having our breakfast on the track. As long as the weather is fine, I like to do this as one can get along for an hour or so after leaving the hut before stopping for a brew and feed. One also is free of the cramped conditions in the hut. After the beach walk we climbed up around the Ruggedy Range and then down to Waituna Bay and a walk along this beach before starting the climb up to Hellfire Pass and thence to the Big Hellfire Hut arriving at 3pm. Along the track we passed matai, rimu, olearia, dracophyllum, gentians, fuchsia and much coprosma foetidissima or stinkweed. Karla was lucky to see five kiwi, including a young one, soon after we started, plus we saw at least three species of orchid and many kiwi and deer footprints. Mud and mud. The mud got worse on this section of the track. Selecting foot placement was essential to avoid getting bogged down. The mud or the sandflies? At least the sandflies weren’t so muddy. I knew Karla was not far behind me because, every now and then I could hear a swooph-ish sound as she extracted a boot from the mud.

Alan heading down to Little Hellfire Beach.

The next day was looking for Pink Pine (Halocarpus biformis) which is a shrub or small tree of high-altitude forest and subalpine scrub. Pink Pine is slow growing but in good conditions it can reach 12 metres, but on the windswept ridges of Stewart Island, it can form a creeping shrub only 1 metre tall. Its sweet-smelling, pink wood contains manool, a chemical favoured by perfume makers because it can be converted into a strong, sweet, dry aroma similar to ambergris. Yes, we kept an eye out for this too, while walking the beaches. Interesting is that these old trees probably use these compounds to help their inner cores from rotting so any timber that is cut from them doesn’t need any anti-fungal treatment.

Alan heads the carbon dating laboratory at Waikato University and with the other team members, are doing research dating cedar, kauri, pink pine and other species. The idea is to have trees that lived from our present to as far back as possible. By studying the tree rings and by carbon dating, they are able to tell what the climate was like 1000 or more years ago. From this data, they can tell if we are coming in or out of a warming or cooling cycle and what the climate has been like in the past. Even to check the pollen and from that discover what species of plants that grew at the time.

Alan core sampling.

Samples are taken from the selected trees, by use of a tree corer. This is a hollow tube with a wood type bit at one end, with an entrance hole to the tube. The other end has a handle which you wind/drill into the tree. The borer tube varies from 500 to 600mm long and they can go up to 800mm or so. Once the corer is into the tree to the full depth, a couple of twists are made to withdraw, then a spoon (a curved cup shaped length) is slid into the tube of the corer. The spoon (more like a shallow u shaped piece of metal) slides under the fresh wood or core sample that lies inside the tube. Then the spoon is withdrawn with the core sample (wood) lying on top of the cupped shaped spoon. The core samples are about 5mm diameter and are carefully slipped into drinking-like straws. The corer is then twisted and pulled out from the tree. As can be imagined, drilling the trees by hand is quite hard work.

The core sample.

Back home, the core samples are glued/fixed in a groove on a wooden plinth, then planed off, sanded and polished. Work can then begin on examining the number of rings and their width with a microscope. These vary according to the growing conditions at the time, but with this basic information we can have a good idea of what the climate was like those many years ago. For instance a Kauri tree can live for more than 2,000 years and is sensitive to any climate change. Swamps in Northland have many buried Kauri trees older than 60,000 years, often with their bark still attached, while swamps near Huntly contain trees up to 1724BC.

Once Alan and his team have a good line of the different trees spanning from the present to as far back as possible, that is, like a time line with tree rings; and with the aid of radio carbon dating, the climates of the past can be worked out. Human history can be matched up too; closer tree rings – maybe a famine? Say a buried ship is found and as long as they can extract a minimum of 200 rings, the specimen can be matched and the date can be worked out. Different oak from Germany, Scandinavia or England can be identified and from this, even trade routes can be worked out all those years ago.

There were many rata trees growing and we came upon some that were still in flower. It wasn’t the flowers that made us look; it was the drone of bees – bumble bees, getting what nectar they could before the flowers fell to the ground. Much of the bush was stunted and no doubt the cold Antarctic winds were the cause of this. Many of the rata branches were in twisted, contorted shapes and this reminded me of my grandfather seeking out similar shapes of pohutukawa to make into brackets and braces for seats and corners on clinker boats. Anyway, Alan did find some suitable trees so he obtained a number of core samples for testing.

Mason Bay Hut

Big Hellfire and Mason Bay.

On the fifth day we left Big Hellfire Hut at 7am heading for the Mason Bay Hut. It had been a rough night in the hut with five others turning up and being quite loud, they sort of took over the hut. Throughout the night, different members of that party were up and down, up and down, going to and fro to the toilet. Maybe the alcohol toddy was the cause? Ah, hut life. It can be very interesting with a wide range of different people staying for the night. On the other hand…? We were off early on the track stopping about an hour later to boil the billy and have a quiet breakfast. Onwards and coming down to Little Hellfire beach I spotted one of the hunters camps. I couldn’t resist going over and having a chat. They were from the Rakaia Branch of NZ Deerstalkers Ass., and had some success. As I was about to take my leave, they offered a leg of venison which I found hard to refuse. Especially as Karla ‘offered’ to carry it. From here we walked along the short beach and then started to climb up the steep track through the bush again. And then the rain came and even some hail. The track was quite steep and with the rain, it became very slippery. Climbing up seemed a long way to me. I’m just getting old. Hey, hang on, I am old! Still, I finally reach the top and started the down hill, catching up to the others but this was a different challenge. Going down, I think we all slipped and fell at some stage. Once I slipped and slid into a tree, even drawing a little blood on my lower ribs but we finally walked

Cut tree patterns.

out onto the beach. We walked past a vertebrae of a whale, which was about 300mm diameter. The tide was high meaning that we had to walk over small boulders for a time, slowing progress. After three quarters of an hour or so, with the receding tide, we were able to walk on the sand. The rain had eased too by the time we reached Duck Creek and the turn off to the Mason Bay Hut. Half an hour later, we thankfully dropped our packs at the hut at 2.23pm. Not a bad time of 7 hours 23 minutes. The track times say a 7 hour walk and 15 km, so considering we stopped for breakfast, had a talk to some deerstalkers, had lunch, plus the conditions – maybe not so old after all!

More to come….