Day 51 – Aicken’s Corner to Locke Hut
Today I embarked on the Taramakau River, one of the more important Maori pounamu tracks in this area. Maori traders would make the trip from the West Coast, where pounamu (aka greenstone aka jade) was available, to the East Coast, where they could trade it for other valuable commodities - mostly food. Greenstone was greatly prized for both stone toolmaking and jewelry, because it is extremely durable as well as beautiful. The route up the Taramakau and over what is now known as Arthur’s Pass was the only one of these pounamu trails that was easy enough that whole families could be brought along. Further south the passes are more treacherous and only men would make the trip.
Today the Harper’s Pass is a fairly popular track, a moderate four or five days connecting the Arthur’s Pass highway with the Lewis Pass one. I had great weather starting out, which allowed me to spread out my gear at lunchtime to dry in the sun. It was an easy day spent on river flats.
When I reached Locke Hut for the evening, I saw there was some gear in one of the bunkrooms, and a note left by a visitor for the other inhabitants. I figured they were out on a day walk, and set about cooking my dinner. As night fell I began to get worried. When it was full dark, I was wondering where these other folks were, and what I should do if they never showed up. Go looking for them? Hike out and report them missing?
Of course it turned out they were hunters, and evening is the best time for hunters. They’ll generally get set up in a good position right around sunset and watch for deer as twilight falls, then hike back by the light of a headlamp. These two showed up about an hour after full dark.
New Zealand doesn’t have a hunting season as such; you can go into the woods and shoot a deer any time of year, with a minimum of regulation. But inasmuch as there is a hunting season, it is “the roar.” This is when the stags are in rut and roar to announce their presence to mates and stake out territory. This is great for hunters as it is a good way to pinpoint a trophy animal. Sometimes they can also bring a stag to them by using a horn to fake a roar. If they’re lucky, the angry stag will come looking for a competitor to drive off his property. One of the hunters said “I was watching you on that last approach to the hut, and saw you stop and have a slash. I thought about giving you a good scare with the horn, but thought ‘he might be armed!’”