Bahrni's Website

Putangirua Pinnacles
The way is shut. It was made by park rangers...
Tuesday 29th March 2005

Returning from our Christchurch trip, Jo and I had a pleasant surprise on arriving back in Wellington. Lindsey and Max, old friends of mine from the UK, were waiting for us at the airport to chauffeur us home. It felt rather strange being picked up from your current hometown airport by visitors to the city.

The next day, we had a plan to take them for a barbecue up at Whitireia Park in Porirua, a short distance away up the west coast, then over to Martinborough for a bit and finally down to the Putangirua Pinnacles, a scenic reserve an hour south.

Unfortunately the weather service had other ideas. I'm not sure whether they're just not very accurate or they're chronically pessimistic, but the weather forecast for Wellington and it's environs always seems to tend towards the wet and windy. From a statistical average standpoint that would seem to be a fairly safe bet, given how often it pours and howls a gale around here. However, this day it wasn't actually accurate at all. The forecast was for rain and northerly winds, so the barbecue idea was shelved and we just drove up to Whitireia Park to have a wee look.

Instead of the rain and wind, it was calm and bright with occasional periods of sunshine. I kicked myself for not taking the barbecue anyway, but we settled for a wander around the headlands of the area and took some photographs. The area's rather pretty and with its long grass, narrow, twisting roads and rocky foreshore it reminded me of parts of rural Scotland. I can certainly see why so many Scots would feel at home in New Zealand.

Back in the car, we drove over the precipitous Rimutaka Ranges into the Wairarapa and down to Martinborough. The town looks a lot emptier when there isn't a fair filling every available space in it, and the Martinborough Hotel, heaving with people on our last visit, was sufficiently subdued as to allow us a peaceful lunch and a glass of wine. I can highly recommend the steak with garlic butter, as long as you don't have to be in an enclosed space with anyone for several hours afterwards. Like, say, a cramped car.

Driving southwards in our garlic-smogged car we headed for the Putangirua Pinnacles scenic reserve which we'd attempted to reach on our last visit and failed miserably. This time though I had a much better idea of where the actual place was and had even marked it as a waypoint on my GPS.

The reserves entrance is up a wide, snaking stream bed with precariously eroded sides of dusty grey gravel. It's all rather spooky with fragile spines of rock and debris sticking skeletally into the air and the ground littered with rubble and fallen trees. It looks as though some greater natural disaster must have befallen the place than mere erosion. It's no surprise that Peter Jackon chose the area for the Paths of the Dead sequence for The Return of the King, although how a film crew got up there is beyond me. Most of the stream bed is fairly strewn with boulders and logs with no obvious drivable route through.

At this point a combination of the failing light and slight heebie-jeebies on Lindsey's part meant that we decided to call it a day and we turned back down the valley towards the car. We didn't actually complete the walking tour suggested on the parks welcome sign, but I suspect it won't be the last time we visit the reserve.