An email from Nigel heralds another rat monitoring weekend at Holdsworth. Mike's skiing but Angela is keen so we head up Saturday morning pausing to pick up breakfast at the French Bakery in Greytown.
We're only expected for the Saturday so I line up an option for a bit of a semi off-track explore on Sunday. In the end we do monitoring both days so the exploration is curtailed, although we both get to see some new territory ...
What: Rat monitoring
Where: Holdsworth, Tararua Forest Park
Who: Angela
When: 19-20 September 2020
There are fewer bodies lined up at the shelter this time as Nigel hands out cards, peanut butter, RTs, GPSs, maps and instructions.
A pest control operation is planned for the area so this will form some of the pre-monitoring. It's the same deal as last time: find the monitoring line, lay ink cards with a peanut butter lure in each of the 10 tunnels along the line and return to base.
I'm doing the same lines as last time (3 and 6) on the spurs and gullies of Pinnacle with Eric (DOC contracted Ranger) and Steve. Angela is heading about an hour up the main valley with Janet to do line 2 but will just be doing the half of the line on the true right as the Atiwhakatu is substantially up.
We head off in our various directions. The true left track is well familiar now - the day is promising to be good and it's a pleasant wander.
Eric nobly volunteers to do the further away line in the gullies below Pinnacle on his own. He picks a point on the track on the way up to send Steve and me on a sidle to line 6 - we find a bit of a game trail which helps and hit the marked stream about 50m up stream from where the monitoring line crosses.
It's a bit odd using a GPS - normally I would follow features, streams, gullies or spurs, to zero in on the desired spot. Following the arrow in a straightish line feels like cheating but works out quicker - provided you look at the terrain as well as the screen of course.
We proceed up the line laying the cards and peanut butter lure as instructed. At the top we dutifully radio in our status and bash around the slope to the Pinnacle track again - failing to see a game trail which Eric later asks us about.
We chat on the way back to the car park. Steve has recently retired from JNL and now has more time to do things like this. Eric, with the lion's share of the work to do, is someway behind so we take over his lounge and drink his tea while the other teams slope in.
There are more people coming in tomorrow to clear the tunnels so in theory Angela and I are no longer required. However, we work out that if instead of wandering around the informal tracks on Pinnacle Ridge tomorrow, if we stay at Atiwhakatu Hut we can lay out a couple of lines in the morning that would otherwise not be covered. Nigel has another volunteer lined up that can clear them on Monday.
Eric gives us the key to the hut's warden's quarters and we head up valley as it starts to try and drizzle a little.
The warden's quarters turns out to be a small room with two bunks and space for one seated. However it means we can chat quietly away from the madding crowds in the main dining area. We turn in early after dehy meals cooked on the penny stove (it copes fine with double the usual loading).
Angela wakes when another punter jumps out of bed to grumble at the young people in the dining room: "Don't you know there's a nine pm curfew?!' The noise, just through the wall from us had been fine and it was the grumbling that disturbed the peace.
We leave in the morning before anyone else is up. The instructions are to head up the track a short way, cross the stream and follow markings up a spur. 'Short' being a relative term we are not entirely sure we are in the right spot when we line up to cross the stream which has dropped over night.
We dutifully try to radio in to say we are about to cross but can't raise a response so cross anyway - it's barely shin deep but we link up just for practice. On the other side there's reception from the Holdsworth repeater and I raise another team that is out and about early. I report that we are about to cross, wait a couple of minutes and report that we are safely across - duty done and everyone happy.
I drag the GPS out to confirm the correct spur and discover that our 'short way up stream' was slightly too short. We scramble up through reasonably open bush onto the spur which has a well marked trail leading up.
It's a steepish grind up but the morning sun has not reached us yet so it's cool. I've been past the top of this track a few times and have always meant to follow it down to the hut, but it has never quite managed to fit into an itinerary. It's nice to finally knock it off and confirm that it is good option for getting to the hut.
At the ridge (8.30ish) we join the beautiful Pinnacle Ridge track at the handcrafted sign to the hut. The monitoring line runs diagonally across the ridge so we use the GPS again to find the starting point then follow along setting the tunnels up.
Towards the southern end the line drops into a gully. I'm a little ahead of Angela who calls something out - I don't hear fully but suggest staying put while I polish off the last tunnel and come back. It turns out that she has managed to gouge a respectable hole in her forearm on a sharp spike - probably old totara. Closer inspection shows a scrape and hole with a bit of welling blood. My seldom called on first aid kit has a suitable large plaster that serves to cover the damage, slow the blood and protect from further dirt ingress.
We follow a wee spur back to the ridge and along to the intersection to Pinnacle, stopping briefly to admire the morning sun on the Holdsworth-Jumbo Ridge across the valley.
At the intersection we follow the sign indicating an alternative route to Donnelly flat (SSW). The ridge drops and we watch the map and clcok to identify the point where we will be departing for the next monitoring line.
This track has a line of gas traps laid along it which I'm sure are new since I came through a few years back - but the cute wee hand-painted steel markers are the same.
We do pretty well but I drag out the GPS to make sure we are scrambling off the track onto the correct side spur. Things again go pretty smoothly, finding the first blue triangle in the wilderness then following back to the start of the line.
This line is much rougher - it drops steeply into a gully then follows a wee stream before climbing the other slope. It's slippery and mucky. Angela has had to change from her foot-mangling boots to running shoes, which are no match for the terrain. She runs into the wall on the scramble out - carrying weekend packs in this stuff isn't the smartest, however, we have plenty of time so we take lots of breaks on the way up the hill.
When we radio-in our status Eric replies and says he'll meet us at the bottom of the hill with a couple who have come in for a walk. I'm pretty sure he's just wanting to make sure that no-one has any troubles with crossing.
The track remains well marked to the bottom of the spur where it runs along a terrace a short distance before dropping steeply again to a stream junction. Below we can see Eric's flouro top glowing through the trees on the other side of the water.
We cross and join them. There's a short scramble to the old track which runs beside the river a short way before rejoining the main track. It's a pleasant walk and good to chat with Eric who, as you would expect, knows the area inside out. He asks about the condition of the main track up to Atiwhakatu which he recently cleared over the space of 8 days. We assure him that all is tidy and looking good.
Postscript
Despite the volume of human traffic on the highway-like tracks, this little corner of the park is pretty, and every time I go I discover another hidden gem that is well familiar to the locals.
Angela recovered quickly from her ordeal and the honourable battle scar is fading - she even seems to have forgiven (or forgotten) being dragged through the type of detritus you can only find in the bottom of a bushy gully.
A few days later we get an email from Nigel with the results. Compared to February, there's significantly less activity overall across the tunnels monitored, although one of the lines that angela and I did was 8/10 positive. The results suggest that rat numbers have declined over winter with less activity near trapping lines - both results unsurprising I guess.
It's interesting to see just how much human hours are required to maintain trapping and monitoring across what feels like a large area, but is a vanishingly small proportion of the range. And even then, in a mast year the rats basically overwhelm the trapping efforts. It does feel like it is having some impact though and with the assistance of an aerial operation every few years it may be possible for some bird species to maintain a toe hold - at least in this valley.
