Romneys and Rye Grass - published in 'Wilderness' magazine

Doug Hood tackles the Banks Peninsula Track

As postcards, tourist shops, and jokes testify, New Zealand is famous for one thing above all. Sheep. The cleanest joke is that in a Kiwi education, there are only two R’s. Romney and Rye grass.
But if you set off on the walking tracks of New Zealand, you usually leave the sheep behind. The classic tramps, the Milford, Routeburn, Abel Tasman, are all through national parks. Access into these wild and beautiful places takes you swiftly away from the experience of rural New Zealand life.
The Banks Peninsula Track changes all that. Privately developed by local farmers, the four day circuit over farmland and private reserves starts and finishes at Akaroa on Banks Peninsula.
It is a scenic wonder, but alongside the dramatic coastline, with its seal caves and yellow eyed penguins, it offers the tramper something extra – a unique insight into rural New Zealand.
It is particularly well placed to do so, for the 29km track almost encircles the first South Island farm. It is also perhaps ironic that it was born out of the slump in farming fortunes. Years of severe drought coupled with the overnight removal of subsidies in 1986 crippled farming viability in the outer bays of Banks Peninsula.
For Mark Armstrong and the others, the summer of 1988 was the trough. The cheques coming back from market didn’t even cover the cost of transporting the sheep. It was diversify or bust. Too remotely situated for horticulture, tourism was an attractive choice.
The track started on a shoestring, using existing huts, and being limited to four a night. Most of the early trampers were foreign travelers, but it has grown increasingly popular with New Zealanders with over half last seasons bookings from Canterbury itself.
Three seasons have seen many changes. The daily number has been increased to 10 and a reduced standby price and two-day option have been introduced. All the accommodation has been upgraded, with new lodges built at the farm hostel and Stony Bay, an old cottage replacing the hut at Flea Bay, and more huts recommissioned at Otanerito. Numerous sidetrips have been added to the original route, and more are planned.
Years ago, as young farmers, Mark, Jeff, and Steve mustered sheep and burnt off the gorse on these hills together. Since then, each of them has set aside areas of their land as reserves – long before the track and green tourism was dreamt of. Now 20 years later, you can sense their enjoyment to be back again in a communal venture.
Jeff Hamilton gives the short introductory talk the first evening, after trampers have been collected from Akaroa. He emphasizes that with a bed guaranteed and food available along the way, this track is not a race, but an experience to savour. Each tramper gets to keep their ticket, a 20 page booklet on the walk, complete with maps, local anecdotes, historical and botanical information.
Those less fit will be glad that only a light backpack is needed, and the first two hours are the most strenuous of the entire trip. The track climbs up to the rim of Akaroa crater, giving stunning views back along the harbour and then out to the Heads, before a meandering descent via waterfalls into Flea Bay.
At the peak of European activity there were three families living in Flea Bay. Until the late 1940’s, cheese, grass seed and wool were still shipped out, but now the valley is empty, a few dilapidated buildings and macrocarpa trees are the only clue to past activity. Sitting on the verandah of the cottage it has the air of desertion, the silence broken only by the sound of the sea.
The next night’s stay is a different kind of relaxation. Stony Bay is pure romance, the picture we carry in our heads of the rural idyll. For many trampers it is obviously the highlight of the track; the single word ‘paradise’ peppers the visitor’s book. Around the huts are swings over the creek, a shower built into the base of a macrocarpa and outdoor baths heated by a fire underneath them. The whole area blends together natural materials with ingenious uses for old farm implements, like the hay tines used as gate hinges. Lying out in the steaming bath under the stars, a glass of wine to hand, listening to the creek babbling past you can understand why people find it a hard place to leave.
The short walk the next day means there is plenty of time to make sidetrips, up the valley and out to the cliffs, before taking the track out of the bay and over cliff tops again to Sleepy Cove.
On hot summer days the pool below the 20m waterfall is popular for a midday swim. An hour or so beyond is the beautiful sandy expanse of Otanerito bay which trampers can either stop at or revisit, the huts being a short way up the valley.
Otanerito station was still being farmed when the track opened, but now its 810ha have been added to the Hinewai Reserve. Enthusiastically managed by Hugh Wilson, a leading NZ botanist, Hinewai is the most exciting environmental project on Banks Peninsula. The large expanses of gorse which destroyed its viability as a farming unit serve instead as nurse canopies for regenerating forest species.
Its altitude range, from valley floor to 806m at the top of Stony Bay Peak, gives it enormous botanical diversity. About 40% is under native bush, with around 230 plant species being recorded. After emerging from the beech forest into the meadows of the Purple Peak saddle, there is one last chance to look back down the valley to the Pacific Ocean before cresting the pass and descending again to Akaroa.
The four nights in the huts, the four days spent walking around these outer bays are enjoyed by almost everyone. Already trampers are returning to do it again. The rich variety of the walks means the owners are right to say ‘It’s not just a walk, but an experience’ – a rewarding one that shows rural New Zealand at its best.