Finally the rain came; I woke several times through the night
to hear it on the roof. When we finally crawled out of bed, the clouds were low
over the valley and it looked like there was more rain to come. We lingered
over breakfast, completed a Sudoku puzzle, then quizzed each other about
preferences for the day. Looking up the valley, I thought we should either sit
it out reading and doing wet-day activities or otherwise head back to Te Anau,
but when I considered the few patches of blue sky that teased from the south, I
was willing to consider Chris’s suggestion that we head back to the Hollyford
Valley and check out the Marian Falls. Initially we had thought we would spend
a day “doing” the Hollyford Valley, which included the Falls, perhaps a walk up
to Lake Marian although the track notes suggested that the section beyond the gantry
up to the alpine lake in the hanging valley was steep and sometimes muddy,
perhaps part of the first section of the Hollyford Track further down river and
the museum at Gunn’s Camp. We agreed to take the day as it came little by
little and were delighted that as the day progressed, the skies cleared and we
were treated to filtered sunlight through the overhanging beech trees even as
we came doe the first kilometre of the gravel Hollyford Road.
We remembered that we had stopped here at the swing bridge once
before to admire this beautiful rocky alpine river but could not recall walking
on to the falls, and when we did arrive onto the gantry, a long wooden
cantilevered walkway up the side of the fast flowing Marian River, we knew we
had not. How could one possibly visit this series of falls and forget the
incredible force of the water, the awesome power of nature. We were spellbound
and even more fortunately alone in this marvellous spot rather than share it
with the tourist masses who seem to be everywhere in this picturesque part of
the country.
After lunch, in the car park and with the day showing no
sign of the inclement weather, we decided to drive on the seven kilometres to
Gunn’s camp. As we came on down the road, surprisingly steep but then taking into
account the following elevations, this should have come as no surprise:
- · The road pass at The Divide is 531 metres ASL
- · The crossroads of the Hollyford Road and the road to Milford is 354 metres ASL
- · Gunn’s camp sits at 153 metres ASL
And so we
had indeed come down some distance. And not only were we impressed with the
descent but the evidence of a huge land slide which surely must have cut the
road off for a very long time. Later we learned that the landslide and twenty
avalanches in September 2013 closed the roads through Fiordland in a major way.
This one along the Hollyford Road, the repairs of which were frustrated by two
more in the same place, closed off Gunn’s Camp for eight weeks. It was only
when a massive 40 tonne bulldozer was brought in that any real progress was
made.
This like Marian’s Corner, Monkey Creek and Cascade Creek
was once the site of a Department of Works Camp through the 1930s, but unlike
the other spots, there are still many of the old huts standing.
Davey Gunn, an eccentric
settler of the area ran cattle through at Martin’s Bay, on the coast and
spent many years subsidising his meagre income running tours through the
valley, accommodating the tourists in the rejuvenated camp, regaling them with
tall tales and transporting them on his trusty horses. He was killed in 1955,
three years after purchasing the PWD camp, while crossing a swollen river on
horseback; alas the small child riding with him was also lost. His son Murray,
who with his two sisters had been brought up by his mother in Oamaru on the
opposite coast took over the “business” and lived to a ripe old age carrying on
his father’s legacy, until he was carted off to an old people’s home. Even from
his bedside he never lost the art of tale-telling he inherited from his father,
and was canny enough, in the absence of children of his own, to leave his
legacy to a Trust which carries on the business to this day although the horse
riding tours seem to have gone by the wayside.
It must be said of Murray Gunn, that while being remembered
as a “hard case”, he was also very active politically, in that fought long and
hard to have the road, a proper road, put through from the Hollyford Valley to
Haast, a route that would open up the West Coast to further tourism. Alas it
proved to be a fruitless crusade, but then who is to say that it won’t happen
in the decades or centuries to come?
According to this fortnight’s manager, they have an
incredible number of paying guests; it would have cost us $15 per head to stay
in our motorhome, although we would have received a 10% discount for our NZMCA
membership. However you have to say, why would you stay here beside the lovely
Hollyford River in rather dodgy looking huts, all haunted by such a fascinating
history, if you could stay in your tent, car or motorhome at Cascade Creek or
the like for $6 per person. I do accept that a tin roof and bed of sorts could
be an enticement.
We chose to revisit the museum, and with an entry fee of $2,
this is well worth it. Sadly much of the collection of memorabilia was lost
with much of the old camp in a fire in 1990, but there is enough to entertain
and educate.
Rather than pursue our original plan of further walking, we
headed up out of the valley and back out on the seal toward Te Anau until we
reached this DOC camp, the first of those on the Milford Road, situated on the
shores of Lake Te Anau a mere twenty three kilometres from the township and
civilisation.
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