He grew up building huts, rafting, fishing and whitebaiting on its slow-moving channels and islets, and knows it as well as anyone. In any case, you'd believe almost anything after spending a couple of hours in this bayou, your sense of direction scrambled, the horizon swallowed by overhanging trees. It's hard to believe State Highway 1 and the Bombay Hills are just 30 minutes away.
From the 200ha Muir dairy farm, it's a quick blat down the Aka Aka Stream to this other world. The farm is Muir's livelihood, but the delta is where his heart is.
He has worked for several years to clear its choked channels and replant the banks in natives. He began with a chainsaw and heavy snig chain, a one-man assault on the crack willow and pampas that overgrew the waterways and prevented them flushing. At the time, people said Muir must have lost his mind somewhere in that maze. Now they call him a "poster boy for wetland restoration" and give him grants to carry on the good work.
On the day I visit, he's expecting a call from the Waikato River Authority (WRA) on his latest grant application. A joint Tainui-Crown entity whose mandate includes funding the clean-up of the river, the WRA has made sizeable grants to Muir's project in the last four years. Will they back him again?
He has applied for funding to finish his immediate work, plus grants for pest eradication and riparian planting. But in addition, he has asked the WRA to consider financing a bridge to improve access to the area he's rehabilitating. It's a big ask — six figures.
Meantime, there's the matter of this taniwha blocking our path. Muir eases the boat around the log and we continue our slow, serpentine transit. On either side, the banks are piled high with tree trunks, mostly willow.
"I like having these piles; they remind me of the amount of work involved," he says.
This channel used to be totally unnavigable. Taniwha aside, it's now a well-flushed 10m-wide body of water. The transformation begins by helicopter-spraying the chokehold of crack willows. Then, on a low tide, Muir crawls out among the dead trees, chainsawing and chaining them, for a digger to drag them clear of the mud and water.
It's dirty, dangerous work: the swampland is shifting, and the digger can proceed safely only with the use of a hardwood pad, effectively laying a road in front of itself. There have been close shaves and Muir never works in here alone — get into trouble, he says, and the tide would swallow you.
What drove him to take it on? Whitebait. This part of the Waikato was historically a whitebaiting mecca. The fishery was so abundant, in fact, that in the 1920s there was a cannery, with the excess processed into fertiliser. But numbers have been declining for years, and one cause is the general choking up of the delta. By opening up the channels and creating a series of tidally flushed pools, Muir hopes to revive the spawning grounds.
At the same time, there has also been a loss of habitat for ducks.
"Now I love whitebait and I love duck shooting, and if something is in decline you can either whinge about it, or do something. I can't affect the world, but I can have an effect here."
But it goes deeper than that. Prior to 1860, this river was "like State Highway 1", and waka heading to and from the Manukau via Waiuku made heavy use of these side channels.
"Everything came through here," Muir says.
For the last century, the river has suffered from a disastrous combination of neglect and wrongheadedness. In Muir's reading, the Arapuni Dam, commissioned in 1929, was a major culprit.
"As a result of the dam, 65 million cubic metres of silt came down the river. They also groyned the river at the elbow. That damaged this delta region, and all of the smaller channels were finished."
The family has been in the area since the 1850s — Muirs have farmed this property since the 1890s — and has generational links to the river. Muir's grandfather took him whitebaiting and told vivid stories about the Waikato. His late father, Sandy, preceded him in replanting the delta banks in natives — albeit on a smaller scale. As a teen, Muir helped his father with the planting, and opened tracks through the swampland to the duck-shooting ponds.
He feels a strong need to see it through. "Dad really wanted me to do this."
Te Papa Eco Lodge
The Muir family want to share their paradise. Their eco lodge, Te Papa, offers a luxury, off-the-grid experience. Beautifully furnished with original art, antique chairs by a cosy wood fire, a huge king-size bed, a spacious bathroom and outdoor bath.
Activities include mountain biking, bush walking, punting on the delta and white baiting, when in season.
A bridge to whitebait: You can donate to the Bridge for Whitebait Spawning Habitat Restoration fund here.
Country Calendar Stories from our rural heartland
by Matt Philp and Rob Suisted
(Potton & Burton, $60, hardback)
Reproduced with permission from Potton & Burton.
