Lower Kaituna Wetland

July 29, 2020

Lower Kaituna Wetland

I had originally planned on wandering the Lower Kaituna Wetland at the beginning of July with someone I met online, but when she pulled up at the tiny, muddy carpark for our second (and last) meeting she took one look and decided she was not walking it that day. Admittedly she had been followed by a lone guy in a ute until she stopped to talk with me (I had been standing at the entrance), who then drove around her, into the carpark and then tried to open the gates (which were padlocked) to drive into the reserve; actions that we both thought suspicious.

Recently I had joined the Whakatane tramping club - I went on my first tramp with them last week, but only took one photo so did not bother to blog about it. Last night was a club meeting, that I attended, and I had mentioned I was walking the wetlands this morning, to which I received a few odd looks and some chuckles. I knew it was not much of a walk, but I was curious about this isolated reserve.

I returned this morning to walk it. The access to the reserve was via a style at the rear of the carpark.

The map of the paths kind of resemble a slightly slanted and squashed capital letter B with an additional path bisecting the bottom half of the B from top to bottom. There are also some optional short dead-end diversions to see locations of interest. I chose to circumnavigate the trail in a clockwise direction.

The first section took me directly up the straight spine of that B. The sky was overcast, the sun a dull glow behind the grey, and there was little natural sound; it was almost as if I was walking through some post apocalyptic landscape where all non-floral life had ceased. The vegetation was mostly toe-toes and cabbage trees.

The path was dead straight for almost a kilometre and, as the name of the place advertises, was somewhat wet. The grass was not short, which resulted in wet boots and the lower parts of one's legs. My boots were waterproof, so I had no issues there. In a couple of places on the entire walk the ground was soggy or muddy, but mostly it was just wet from rain or dew or humidity.

At the end of the straight section I arrived at a curved body of water that I initially mistook for the Kaituna River. It wasn't the river (I never saw the river at all even though I was very close).

Following the bank of this water channel I encountered the wildlife, all in the form of birds. The first were fantails, then two very large black swans that were swimming the surface of the water until they saw me before taking flight; I was too slow getting my phone out and opening the camera app to capture them on camera. Then a Pukekohe (with a second a little later), followed by a V shaped bird that reminded me of some of the snazzy balsa-wood planes we had as kids; a starling or a swallow perhaps. Lastly were a group of ducks splashing and quacking in the distance.

As I left that body of water to follow a more narrow channel, strangely all birds ceased to appear. I soon reached a junction, where I could turn right to run along the middle of the B to either complete the "long loop walk," which would have been a slanted P shaped walk, or to walk part of the "short loop walk," which is a smaller reversed P then rotated 90 degrees clockwise shaped walk. I kept left to walk part of the "short loop walk" back to the carpark.

A little further along was an optional diversion to the "lookout." Curious I wandered the 100 metres, which took me to a large pond. Directly across was a hide (which I will see up close shortly).

Back to the trail and I walked down to the bottom right of the B. The trail across the bottom was a farm-track which was obviously regularly used by vehicles. In fact, off to the left (where the farm-track went, but did not seem to be part of the reserve) I could see some vehicle amongst the trees and hear sounds of work being done.

Another sign offered another short diversion off to the right for another 100 metres, this time leading to the hide I had viewed from across the water.