Philippa Stevenson: Gut-busting titans in the land of forest giants

There's nothing like a 1000-year-old kauri tree to set you thinking.

If you come across one in a forest, and measure out the vast girth of a towering trunk, inevitably you turn to measuring yourself and your kind.

I always thought I had to do serious tramping to see such treasures, or trek to Northland's Waipuoa forest for conveniently sited trees such as the great Tane Mahuta.

I did not suspect that the kauri grove in Waikato's Hakarimata ranges was such a magnificent and easily-accessible gem.

After just a 30-minute walk up a well-maintained, all-weather path I viewed this plentiful grove of giants with three conservation champions of the Hakarimata reserve - the bush-clad hills between Ngaruawahia and Huntly bounded by the west bank of the Waikato River and clearly visible from State Highway 1.

My guides, known in conservation circles as "the great triumvirate" or the Northern Hakarimata Walkway Committee, were Darrell Carey, Phil Langsford and Brian Smith.

Carey and Langsford, in their late 80s, and the "young chap" Smith, a mere seven decades old, are walking, talking, hardworking examples of a fashionable phrase: Just do it.

Former beekeeper Carey is the ringleader who, about 11 years ago, finding Langsford and Smith with what he considered time on their hands after they'd given up full-time farming, suggested they could make something of the possum-chomped, quarried, logged and struggling forest on their doorsteps.

Carey's suggestions - always politely offered - are tempered like steel and as inescapable as a gin trap. He has used them to equally good effect to extract around $500,000 worth of work, money and commitment for his beloved bush. The donors were his mates, private companies, councils, government departments and me.

For a decade, the three have cut walking tracks into the hills from the once gorse-dominated Parker Rd reserve entrance, about 4km south of Huntly.

"You wouldn't believe it but some days we could work all day and only get 30 metres," Carey said.

But I could believe it even though 11 years after they began native trees shade the gorse and treetops are flowering thanks to a possum control programme.

I thought I was doing well just climbing the successive flights of steps to the kauri grove.

The gut-busting efforts of Carey, Langsford and Smith are as giant as the kauri they have enabled fair-weather walkers like me to see.

Last year, the Hakarimata Restoration Trust, formed in 2001 to return the 1800ha Hakarimata reserve to a healthy state, released its 10-year management plan.

Smith represents the walkway committee on the trust and treads the sometimes rocky path between it and the single-minded Carey.

The priority for "just do it" Carey is to have the reserve declared a regional forest park, with more effort put into setting up and maintaining visitor facilities.

The more people who know the bush, he calculates, the more there will be to save it.

"We have a regional park in development," he says. "We've got the track work, we've got the assistance for pest control. It's already being used by about 10,000 visitors a year and as a system for education. We're not going to do it, it's already in progress."

Waikato District Council environmental planner Alan Turner says the reserve is a park in all but name. No legal change of status is required; the forest just needs to be identified and promoted as a park.

But there is plenty of work to be done to make it more visitor-friendly and to reveal its many glories.

Just a couple of hundred metres along the Firewood Creek track at the Ngaruawahia end of the hills is a beautiful grotto with a waterfall and pebble-bottomed swimming hole. But the track to it is overgrown, falls dangerously away in places and the area is infested with weeds.

Ngaruawahia already has a heritage trail around the historic town starting from The Point. Turner and Carey agree this would be the ideal starting point for circular tracks up into the hills and along the river.

They want lookouts and educational display boards built, better parking, toilets and picnic facilities.

Above all, they want locals and visitors alike to know and appreciate the area's natural wonders.

Last year, Carey summed up 10 years of the walkway committee's work. "We believe it is time for others to take over and we wish them well," he wrote.

The old dogs may not be up to some of the physical work they once were but one suspects their bite is as good as ever.

The Hakarimata Regional Forest Park sounds a fine name and concept to me. Who am I to argue with giants of the forest?