Trotters Gorge
Four of us headed down to Trotters Gorge to explore a new area. We met Jane M along Horse Range Road on her farm that she would guide us around for the day. Jane and her Husband brought this land about two years ago with a plan of farming some of it and putting a majority of it back into native bush.
At the moment the front half of the property is pretty rough ground after the pine forest that was on it got milled before they brought the property, so they have a big job ahead of them cleaning this area up. The back half of the property is a mix of a bit of farm land and native bush, gorse with some great mudstone cliffs. We started by following a track over the rough milled ground following a stream with some interesting things to see along the way, like a water shoot through mud stone and a wee gorge with some native bush and a sulphur and coal seam. From here we zig zag our way up to the south east end of the property before dropping down into the back of the property which was a mix of a bit of farm land and bush. Jane showed us the spring where they get most of their water from and her bee hives. We then followed a track through some bush climbing up and then dropping down to follow a track that Jane had cut through the bush and gorse north along their boundary by Back Creek and above us was some mudstone cliffs that Jane was still in the progress of cutting a track under, so we didn’t get up there this time. At the northern boundary we climbed up out of there and dropped back down into another wee gut, full of bush and lined with mudstone cliffs on both sides. We followed this gut back up through a track that Jane had cut and zig zag our way up under the cliffs. We came to a stand of Pungas and as we came through them, we came out under a big overhang under the cliffs that curved for about 100m lined with bush on the bottom side, really impressive. After this we then climbed out on to a road track and up to the highest part of the farm for lunch, with some great views of the Katiki Beach, north to Oamaru, south to Mt Cargill and inland to the peaks behind Trotters Gorge Reserve. After lunch we went down over a paddock and into a pine plantation, visiting another big overhang which had a column made from a Stalactite coming down from the roof and meeting up with Stalagmite coming up from the floor. All this is just above Horse Range Road and you would never know it was there. We were soon back onto Horse Range Rd and a short walk down the road soon had us back at our vehicle. We thank Jane for showing us around, she and her husband have got a big job on their hands, but we look forward to going back sometime to see the progress.
Thanks Jane for showing – John, Mike, Jane G and me, Neville around.
