In an attempt to find out what it was like for members of the OTC one hundred years ago we decided to walk from Cableways in Kaikorai Valley to Whare Flat and return. This route would have been one that those early club members did often as Cableways is the end of the cable car line and this would have been their starting place to access tramping areas. Expecting this trip to be a longer day with no water enroute and a warm, sunny day we didn't expect a large crowd so were pleasantly surprised to have 7 people meet at Cableways. The first part of the trip was a 300m climb up Taieri Road and along Whare Flat Road. Being mostly on the sealed footpath, we were able to chat with others during the climb up the hill which seemed to take no time. Before I knew it, we were at the forestry gates in under an hour.
The early OTC members followed tracks through what is now forestry but would have been native bush down to Whare Flat and that was our intention today. After entering the forest from the locked gate we took the first right off Laing Road onto a mountain bike trail that took us on an easy 1.9km wander through the pine forest to the Bull Ring. From the Bull Ring we again took the first right onto another mountain bike trail which was heading down the hill in the general direction that we wanted to go. Because the trails are for mountain bikes they were easy to follow and whenever we reached a junction we kept taking the trail that continued to take us down hill until we reached one of the main forestry roads which we followed to Whare Flat.
Once at the locked gate of the forestry roads at Whare Flat we opted to follow the gravel road and over the ford where one of our OTMC drowned during the club marathon 15 years ago. We stopped for a couple of minutes to remember Trevor before carrying onto the Whare Flat School which was a regular stopping place for 'a brew up' by the early club members 100 years ago. The school was opened in 1868 and once hosted up to 42 children from all over the Taieri before closing in 1948. While looking a little overgrown the school building still stands behind it's school gates looking to be in reasonably good condition for having been unused for almost 75 years.
We continued down the Whare Flat Road to the Silver Stream car park which is where there was some discussion about lunch but upon deciding it was a little early we continued through the ford and over the bridge before heading straight up to the Tunnels Track. The Tunnels Track is a nice meander beside the water race. Built in the 1870's the water race provided much of the water for a reservoir in Kaikorai Valley for the growing city of Dunedin until the 1960's when it was deemed there were too many problems with subsidence and the weir was no longer maintained. We passed one of the two tunnels on the water race where one of our team who was happy to get his feet wet, jumped in with a head torch to see how far the tunnel went. Not being able to see the end it wasn't long before he was back out into the sunshine.
As the water race follows the contour of the hill it is easy walking until the pine plantation is reached then it is a short scramble up out of the bush. It was here that we elected to have lunch in the shade of the trees. After lunch we were back onto the forestry roads heading up the hill to Flagstaff. This time we opted to take Longridge Road which we nicknamed 'the long easy' because it was a constant easy gradient winding it's way up the hill. We were rewarded for our efforts half way up the hill where the pine trees had been harvested and we had great views of Whare Flat, Taieri Plains and Saddle Hill.
By now the temperature was rising and it was hot work up the hill on 'the long easy' which felt like it just kept going - and it did for 5km until we reached a junction and could take Laing Road back to the forestry gates where we had entered the forest this morning. Thankfully Laing Road mostly follows the contour so we were granted a rest from the uphill. Once at the locked forestry gate we retraced our steps down Whare Flat Road and onto Taieri Road where we were surprised to find an armchair on the footpath. Not wanting to waste an opportunity, one of our team was quick to take a rest before walking further down Taieri Road where we took a compulsory stop at the ice cream shop. Once replenished with an ice cream it was a fast final 1km to the cars.
A great effort of 7 hours 45 minutes for the round trip of 30km. We were left to wonder about those early OTC members who would walk what we had just done just to get to the start of the tramping area and then go onto to do their tramping trip often returning by candle light. Our conclusion was that they must have been very fit!
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