Macraes Giants- Otago; Part 1

Real-time

We went looking for giant lizards at Macraes Flat, instead we found a giant bird, a giant mine and a giant collection of pig skins!

We travelled through some new territory on the way to Macraes Flat, following the eastern end of the Otago Rail Trail which finishes (or starts, depending on which way you ride it) in Middlemarch. We stopped at the old Hyde Hotel where many bikers call in at the cafe for refreshments on their way through.

I also took the obligatory church photos (both now decommissioned) and one of the the old school, which is now a cyclists accommodation lodge.

A little further on we turn left and head up onto the rocky plateau ahead of us. We're on a bit of wild goose chase, one I don't hold out much hope in being successful in either. But we have all day ahead of us and nowhere we need to be in a hurry. And we have our home on the back, so we'll stop where and when the fancy takes us. 

We're looking for Grand Skinks and their slightly larger brothers the Otago Skink, they are New Zealand's largest lizard at 300mm (11 inches) long. They are very rare, very endangered and found only in three or four small areas in Otago, including in the Macraes Flat conservation area.

We've only ever seen them at Orokonui Ecosanctuary in Dunedin where they are successfully breeding- that's a young lizard riding on a parent's back with two juveniles on the rock below. The baby is about the size of the usual skinks people see in NZ.

I took these photos also at Orokonui- that's an adult top left and a baby bottom right and look how well camouflaged they are in the bush. You've probably guessed due to the lack of photos from elsewhere that we failed to find any skinks at Macraes Flat. Which actually isn't that surprising considering the fact that, in the end, we ran out of time and didn't even look! 

Here we are crossing the Taieri River for the upteenth time on our travels. This isn't surprising given that the river is 318km long and flows from the upper reaches of the Maniototo Valley, makes a dramatic U turn around the northern end of the Rock & Pillar Range and flows down through the Strath Taieri Valley (where we are) all the way to the ocean.

We've crossed back and forward over the Taieri River numerous times while exploring the Maniototo and Otago, we've been to the top in the Maniototo Valley and seen the Upper Taieri Scroll Plain where the river begins its journey (click to enlarge) and to the bottom, staying at Taieri Mouth not long after we started this journey and everywhere in between.

This beautiful old iron lattice truss bridge over the Taieri was built in 1879.

It was a long, slow and steady haul up onto the plateau where the views back over the valley to the Rock & Pillar Range behind were absolutely stunning. The Rock & Pillars rise to 1450m and are named for the impressive tors along the ridge. 

We pass many hundreds of tors on this side of the valley too, in fact we could still be in Central Otago as the landscape is so similar, and then travel on past farmland atop the Taieri Ridge. It took a few moments to register what we were seeing strung along the fenceline ahead of us as we passed here.  As far as the eye could see ahead... 

...and once we stopped, back behind us, at least a kilometre of animal skins! Collected over the past 20 years they are mostly wild pigs but deer, goat and wallaby skins are in there too, some complete with skulls. Eeuw!

There are many bizarre fences in New Zealand; Cadrona's famous bra fence, several shoe fences, a jandal (flip-flop) fence or two, bike fences, hubcap fences, number plate fences but now we've seen it all! No wussy collection here, this is a true Southern Man's fence! 

Further on, and as we drop down into the a huge basin of Macraes Flat, far across the valley we can see some terracing on the hills and steam rising from chimneys near what looks like a very large mine site (I've zoomed in here). I wonder if we'll get close...

Eventually we pull into the old gold mining settlement of Macraes (pop. 54). where there's neither sight nor sound of people about, even though it's a holiday Monday. In 2014 the settlement changed its name from Macraes Flat to Macraes so as to distinguish itself from the surrounding district.

We have lunch parked beside the old stables of the historic Stanley's Hotel (1882) which is across the road.

Stanley's Hotel was owned by Oceana Gold, the gold mining company that runs the nearby mine. In 2015 it was returned to the community in exchange for some impressive artwork....well one piece of impressive art, I'm not so sure about the others.

Located behind where we're parked is the Macrae Heritage & Arts Park and wetland, originally given to the community by the mine it has now been exchanged for the hotel, other heritage buildings, land and money. 

Eventually, I'm sure, the park will be given back to the community. I mean what's a gold mine going to do with a 9m high, 750kg big bird, a tussock planting and numerous large billboards (a very odd contribution if I must say so myself).

The bird on the other hand is a stunning sculpture and such a pity it's not seen by many people. You could drive straight through Macraes and not spot it, or even visit the settlement and not know of it tucked out the back.

With a 12m wingspan, it is of the long extinct Haast's Eagle, a bird that in reality weighed about 15kgs and had a wingspan of 3 metres. It was known to attack and eat moa, the sculpture is in attack mode here. As befitting a bird of this size the eagle was flown, beneath a helicopter, from sculptor Mark Hill's (son of jeweller Michael Hill) home in Arrowtown to Macraes in 2008. Now that would have been an impressive sight. 

This little dog's grave stone and plaque has been moved to near the entrance to the walkway around the wetland and sculpture park. What a sad little poem; David & I couldn't decide whether the driver ran back and forth over the dog until she died or just ran over her and killed her outright. Either way it was obviously a very traumatic time for her owner, and just before Christmas too.

I took a quick walk up the road to locate the local church, and as with many of NZ's abandoned or nearly abandoned country settlements, this is another church that has seen better days. This is the former St Patrick's Catholic Church, a Category 2 listed Historic Place building, now located in a horse paddock and in a sad state of disrepair.

To be continued... Part 2

Orokonui Ecosanctuary

I have followed the success of the Orokonui Ecosanctuary for quite some time on Facebook so with a sunny day finally dawning in Dunedin we decided to pay the reserve a visit, although by the time we got sorted it was well into the afternoon before we left. Orokonui is located 20kms north of the city overlooking Blueskin Bay, it’s a 307 hectare mainland “island” surrounded by 9kms of pest exclusion fence. The 1.9 metre tall stainless steel mesh fence is designed to keep out all introduced mammals, at ground level a steel skirt stops burrowing animals and a curved hood on the top stops climbing animals like cats & possums from entering the reserve.

And what a magic place it turned out to be, a definite highlight of the journey so far and one we will definitely be returning to when we come back to Dunedin (I know, I know…..another thing to add to the ever growing list of re-runs; this trip may just last 3 years!)

We parked beside this friendly fellow who was obediently waiting on the tray of a ute. while his Dad was doing some landscape work near the carpark.

The visitors centre was stunning; facing north east to catch the all day sun, it fitted into the environment so well. There was a large café overlooking two small ponds & the bush further on along with many nature displays & exhibits on show inside. We entered the reserve through a two gate locking system (so a rodent couldn’t make a dash in with us) and with a well marked map were able to explore in our own time. The sanctuary also does guided tours both day & night.

We made our way to the top clearing first as that was where we’d seen two takahe striding through while we were putting our boots on at the car. Takahe are flightless birds that belong to the rail family. They are similar to our pukeko (NZ swamphen) but much larger and were once thought to be extinct. The last 4 birds were taken from their home in the Murchison Mountains near Te Anau in 1898. It wasn’t until 50 years later in 1948 that they were “re-discovered”. There are now 270 birds at various sanctuaries around NZ but they are still on the critically endangered list. The two Orokonui takahe came from the successful breeding population on Mana Island in Wellington Harbour.

Not far from the takahe was a small open enclosure with stacks of rocks, native grasses & mingimingi growing. This brightly painted Maori figure took centre stage.

And sunning themselves on the rocks in the mid afternoon sun were the largest lizards I have ever seen in New Zealand.

These are Otago Skinks, they can grow up to 300mm in length and are in fact the largest lizard in NZ. They are only found in the Otago region and are one of NZ’s rarest reptiles. I’ve never seen them before or even heard about them so this was a fascinating sight. They have beautiful & quite striking markings which is obviously why Southern Maori call them mokomoko (moko is a permanent body and face marking)

We walked a number of tracks through the thick regenerating bush in the reserve catching sight of the usual bush dwellers; tui, bellbirds, kereru, tomtits, warblers, robins and a noisy flock of kaka. Far down in the valley are the saddlebacks & the tallest tree in NZ; we didn’t have time to walk that route. Along with the kaka noise the bird song in the bush was amazing, how wonderful it would be to have all that noise throughout New Zealand’s bush & forests. On some of the bush walks we’ve done we’d be lucky to hear half a dozen bird calls. It’s quite sobering to realise how far introduced predators have decimated our native bird population.

This male bellbird (koromiko) was singing his beautiful tune from the top of a tall bush, no doubt trying to impress the ladies.

The track came out into a clearing towards the end and it was here that we heard a slightly familar but not often heard bird call. It sounded like a large cricket, clicking away in the tall grass. But no matter how long we stood there we could not locate the source and when we moved it stopped altogether. We decided to see if we could locate this tiny secretive bird up near the takahe, where we began our walk, on the aptly named Fernbird Track. For in fact the clicking noise we heard belongs to the fernbird (matata).

We followed the predator proof fence around past the visitor centre and up the rise to the top of the reserve again…..

….back past the takahe who were now out grazing on the grass in the warmth of a fast setting sun.

And then as we approached the skink enclosure we heard that familiar clicking again. It took David a few moments to locate which bush it was coming from and as he did out popped our very first sighting of a fernbird (matata). I managed to grab a couple of quick shots before it jumped down behind the rocks and quickly made it’s way towards & over the fence and disappeared just as quickly into the bush on the other side, fernbirds are poor flyers but very fast movers.

And they aren’t called fernbirds because they live in ferns, although they probably do, their main habitat is dense lowland or wetland scrub. They’re called fernbirds because their tails look like fern fronds, they’re quite soft & feathery and spike like the feathers we used to add to a headband to make us look like Indians when we played Cowboys & Indians as kids. My next mission is to photograph a bird & it’s tail feathers!

We hunted about & stayed watching for another 15 minutes or so but sadly we failed to sight a bird & we heard no more clicking either. Never mind we finished our visit on a high and I ticked another bird on my list.

The sanctuary closed at 4:30pm and we were the last ones out the gate. The tussock & toitoi had turned a golden bronze in the setting sun.

And as the cloud rolled in from the sea over the top of Mopanui & the birds continued their evening song we both agreed we will be back in the summer and explore all day. I might just manage to get that shot of that tail too.