The Aorangi Restoration Trust is working with Greater Wellington Regional Council to reinstate public access to the Aorangi Forest Park through the Hiwinui Forestry block. The Council plans to open the block as a Regional Park from February 2027. The Trust is also working with the Greater Wellington Backcountry Network and Ngāti Kahungungu Iwi to reinstate the Department of Conservation track up Aorangi Maunga, previously known as Bull Hill. This track has an interesting history.
Chris Bland, who worked for a predecessor agency of South Wairarapa District Council at the time, spearheaded the quest for a track up “Bull Hill” (Aorangi Maunga) through the South Wairarapa Tramping Club. “It was discussed at a club meeting and several of us thought it would be great to have a track up Bull Hill. That may have come about from someone saying that there had been a track up there many years ago – probably following an old animal trail”.
Chris said, “we decided that we would investigate, this was about 1981. I discussed it with Robin Cox of the NZ Forests Service, I knew Robyn through previous contact. Robin was the local head of the NZ Forest Service in Masterton, and he was OK with the idea and gave us the required go ahead. He suggested that we mark our trail and let him know when we had done it”.
About 8-10 of us went on the first trip in, one of our members – Janet Corlett volunteered her husband, John, who as a hunter had been in the area and knew of some of the tracks. Those on that first trip were myself and oldest son Ross, John Corlett, and Nan August, Raj Sumeran, Eva Rolls and I think Marius Kuiniger and possibly his daughter Frauke-Sigrid, Dennis Weston, Dave and Beth Woodcock there may have been more but I cannot exactly recall,
Janet, worked for Bouzaid and Ballaben in Martinborough in the old Wairarapa Farmers Company Association (WFCA) building beside the old Post Office and she got a supply of underpants off cuts to tie onto trees etc to mark the track. We had an assortment of ‘cutting’ gear – slashers, machetes and secateurs.
We dropped down into the stream bed off the Blue Rock road through a pine plantation and went up the stream bed to a fork in the stream and proceeded to climb a spur on the left through native bush following animal tracks. We were tying the undie cutoffs onto tree branches. The going became more difficult as we got nearer to the top and we struck some areas of cleared bush and encountered gorse at which point we sidled around the gorse and a patch of stinging nettle and found our way through the native bush, eventually coming to the top.
We reported back to Robin Cox at NZ Forest Service and they put in a group of PEP workers to formally cut a track from the road down to the stream bed, along the stream bed and up the ridge to the top of Bull Hill, Apart from a small section before the gorse, the track followed the undies trail. The track was well made and well-marked.
The Project Employment Programme or PEP scheme was set up by the Department of Labour in New Zealand ‘to give subsidised, short-term public sector employment for job seekers’. It began in August 1980 and finished in August 1986. At its peak there were more than 50,000 people employed. People were paid a full-time wage just above the minimum wage.
In a letter dated 21st December 1981 the NZFS Conservator of Forests J D Rockell noted that “the grapevine may have already intimated that your request for access into Haurangi State Forest via the riverside reserve of Dry River met with success at the meeting of the Catchment Board on 17th December 1981. Not all victories are so easily won”.
The New Zealand Forest Service 1982-83 Haurangi Forest Park Annual Report noted that the Dry River benched track was completed, providing valuable access to the northern corner of the park. Park Ranger Joe Hansen recalled that he developed “quite a sweat up working on the benched track down to the river”. The following year’s report noted that the lookout tower was erected with the help of helicopters on the summit of Bull Hill (Aorangi Maunga), providing a rewarding vista over the bush of the Wairarapa valley. Note that the Lookout Tower was removed by DOC in the aftermath of the Cave Creek disaster in the late 1990’s. Chris Bland remembers that the tramping club did a number of trips up Aorangi Maunga in the 4 years that he was secretary/treasurer. Chris said, “it was probably 5 trips or more- it was just so easy to access from Martinborough”.
