MURCHISON CAMP – January 1961

Forest and Bird, Issue 141, 1 August 1961, Page 5

MURCHISON CAMP - January 1961

When 72 members of our Society (31 North Islanders) arrived in Murchison on 5 January for the South Island camp they were hardly prepared for such a wealth of outdoor attractions. When they left a week later they were amazed at what they had seen: river, bush, and lake scenery at its best rugged escarpment in every valley visited; an historic past seen in old goldmining claims ; the great slips which testified to the force of the tragic 1929 earthquake. Added to all this was the hospitality of industrious farming folk throughout the district.

The Murchison District High School proved an ideal site, right in the heart of the attractive compact township. The modern classrooms provided ideal dormitories opening on to the wide verandah, along the length of which many slept. The school baths were available for swimming, and from the tidily kept grounds one’s eyes

often lifted to fascinating mountain landscapes. The Lyall Range down the Buller, the Matiri Valley snowtops, and .Mount Murchison towards Nelson, in the morning clothed in wispy fine-weather mists, charmed all continually. The weather remained hot and sunny throughout, and the warm, windless evenings, combined with the long twilight strange to the 31 North Islanders, made many reluctant to go inside the Oddfellows Hall for the evening lecture. Campers were welcomed on the first evening by Mr. Malcolm Brown, Chairman of the County Council, and by Mr. B. C. Spiers, Chairman of both the local school committee and the Nelson Education Board. Mr. Spiers also gave an informative lecture on the history of the district. On the second evening in the absence of Mr. Spiers, Mr. B. Teague, leader of the camp, who had spent four years in the Murchison district over the earthquake period, used a set of slides owned by Mr. Spiers in describing the

vicissitudes suffered by the district in the great upheaval. On the third evening campers supplied their own programme. Miss S. Izard, Wanganui, and B. Teague screened colour slides of the 1960 camps at Ruapehu and Arthur’s Pass. Mr. and Mrs. J. Walker showed slides depicting the comprehensive activities of the Dunedin Branch. On successive evenings lectures were given, as well as colour slides showing the skill of Murchison photographers and embracing every feature of the wide district, many being of alpine and hunting interest. The evening was arranged and presented by Mr. Alex Sutherland, who with his wife and daughter Leonie gave hospitality. Their great gifts in organising, both prior to and at camp time, helped to make the camp a success. There was a talk by Mr. Newton McConochie of Glenhope, “My Life with Animals”; a short geological talk by Mr. Frank Alack, former mountain guide, and on the last night a camp meeting and the children’s quiz.

The day trips were planned to cover a very wide area and many interesting features. A return trip of 40 miles, more than half of it through native bush, took campers to Horse Terrace, an historic mining locality set in the high narrow valley of the Matakitaki River below a fantastic mountainside escarpment. A swim in the sparkling clear water before returning home climaxed 3. day of great interest and beauty. Next day a short run to the Mangles Valley gave us an hour with an expert gold

prospector, Mr. Hill, and many campers swirled a gold dish under his instructions and found tiny specks of “colour”. Some later made private gold-seeking expeditions to the Buller Gorge and elsewhere as time permitted and were able to return home with samples of their toil. Continuing from the Mangles the cars carried on to Tutaki, where at the farm home of Mr. and Miss Bailey the whole 70 people were entertained to morning tea. Then the party travelled on through the bush road connecting Tutaki with Lake Rotoroa, where a pleasant lunch was held. More than half of the campers let the cars go ahead for the pleasure of walking the miles of this bush road. On Sunday morning an open-air divine service was held in the school grounds, after which the whole camp went in cars to the farm of Mr. and Mrs. S. A. Esler in the Tutaki Valley. Here a picnic lunch was held, with swims and entertainment by friendly, almost tame, bush robins, on a lovely bush walk. Further trips were held on successive days that took us picnicking, photographing, swimming, botanising, and scenery drinking down the Buller Gorge, climbing to a high pakihi, visiting the lower Maruia Valley and earthquake waterfall, and a memorable bush tramp to Lake Casselani. Here we found not only a beautiful hidden lake but also amazing limestone cliffs, curved and arched and hundreds of feet high. Another feature little known to tourists was the amazing rapids in the Buller Gorge, where this large river is confined to a narrow channel of red granite rock. This seldom visited feature should be opened to visitors by the cutting of a short track. The scenery of the district, the hospitality of residents, the weather, and many features tangible and intangible, with the happy friendship of the campers themselves, combined to make the camp a memorable one. Murchison is one of the finest districts in New Zealand in which to spend an outdoor holiday, and it is certain further camps will be held there.

A notice about the January, 1962, ecology course at Tongariro appears on page 11.

Mr. C. Huygens, secretary of the Whakatane Section, writes that a member (Mr. H. Frost of Kawerau) stated in a recent letter: “The logging people should not cut any miro trees, as this tree is

one of the best fruiting trees in our native bush for the pigeons. This is little enough to ask them to do.”