If this story does not make you want to get the tools out....take up knitting


SOLITUDE
Solitude is an increasingly rare experience but in June 1994 I had eight days alone
rowing my John Welsford designed dory on Lake Hauroko.

OWEN SINCLAIR
This photograph taken by Owen on Lake Hauroko is among my all time favourites. It was printed on the back cover of John Welsford's book without credit or explanation. I must have spent dozens of hours looking at this wondering why I did not set too and build myself a light dory.
John and I plan to build a light dory over one weekend very soon. We intend to document all of the steps along the way on this website and think it would be a good Christmas project. You get to build a boat and use it almost in the same week.
Dave Robertson

LAKE HAUROKO
The lake lies 98km north west of Invercargill (see map) close to the south-eastern boundary of Fiordland National Park. Hauroko is New Zealand's deepest lake at 462 metres and, some say, it's most beautiful, surrounded by untouched (except by deer and pigs) native forest and for the most part by mountains, which at the head of the lake, within 20km of Dusky Sound, rise to more than 1500 metres. The lake is approximately 33km long, the lower part lying approximately north-south, then running west-north-west for five kilometres, then trending north-north-west until the head. Northerly winds funnel down between the mountains and can rapidly raise a high, steep chop. Water spouts have been reported and southerly winds can also create dangerous conditions. Hauroko translates variously as 'sounding or soughing wind' or 'windy water.'

But in winter there can be days on end of clear, sunny, calm conditions and, in the hope of such weather, I drove south from Christchurch to my father's home at Riverton on the Southland coast. He has power-boated on the lake for about 30 years since road access has been available. He has seen the lake in its violent moods and was dubious about my choice of a 16' 6" dory as a lake cruiser. I had my own memories of huddling in the family 14' Hartley power boat with green water crashing over the forward deck and running back to the windscreen to explode in spray over the boat as we came up the lake. In the next few days other experienced power-boaters also expressed their doubts and everyone warned me to get off the lake the moment a wind came up. Although confident in the boat I was also aware of its limitations and mine. I departed for the lake determined to play safe, aware that solo trips are often looked on with disfavour.
On Monday June 13 we arrived at the lake in overcast conditions. There was one other vehicle parked there with an empty trailer behind. The owners arrived under auxiliary power in their 20' workboat shortly after I launched. They had run their boat onto a steep beach the previous night, water had gradually flooded in through the clearing ports onto the wash deck and eventually the boat had settled for enough to flood the engine compartment. The electric bilge pump had flattened the battery, so the engine couldn't be started. They were very pleased to see us; the battery they had flattened belonged to their truck. It's a long walk to the nearest farm. They cautioned me about the lake then wished me luck. I departed towards Mary Island while my father went off to jump-start their truck. About 10 minutes later I heard the rumble of the Landcruiser departing, the sound gradually fading to be replaced by bird-calls and the clunk of the rowlocks. Other than planes high overhead, this was the last engine I heard for eight days. I rowed through the approximately 20 metre gap between Mary Island and the shore and around some of the little islands nearby. Bays exposed to the north were deeply littered with driftwood and there was little vegetation until about 1.7 metres above the water. Lunch ashore on a little delta formed by an unnamed stream. A wild tangle of dead, fallen trees upstream. Late afternoon saw me camped near the Rooney River. I felt elated, alone in beautiful surroundings, so different from my workplace in central Christchurch outside which tattooed drunks stumble back and forth on their way between the City Mission and the nearby park. There was total darkness by six o'clock and frost on the tent by seven. I was in bed by eight with the Coleman lantern just outside the tent, and lay reading and listening to moreporks call.
Next morning frost coated the inside of the tent and the sleeping bag was covered in condensation. North of here is an especially dangerous part of the lake; mountains drop steeply into the water forming rock-clad walls; there are no beaches for three to five kilometres and the wind funnels through. By 11am the sun had not reached the tent so I packed it still covered in ice which bulked it up, making it difficult to get into the bag. Around the point there were small waves and a light breeze which increased over the next hour. The waves were very responsive to the wind, increasing in height within minutes of each increase in wind speed. I sat in the middle of the lake contemplating pushing on, but given the warnings I had received, the fact this trip was intended to be a holiday not an epic, and the increasing wind I opted out. Near the western shore, I turned and rowed back down the lake, well sheltered once the lake turned more north-south.
After an hour or so, a nice beach appeared and I stopped for a stretch. Here I took the photograph which appears, uncredited, on the back cover of John Welsford's book. Nearby is a hut – dank, dirty and dark. Further on I photographed a spectacular cliff soaring upward from the water and later a waterfall which must be over 30 metres high. Backing the dory towards the waterfall brings an icy, turbulent flow of air onto me, and closer in, a spray of water. Later another waterfall is visible, falling in stages, the first about 100 metres up the mountainside. There are lots of tiny beaches along this shoreline offering refuge to rowboats or kayaks but the wind did not follow me here. Two tiny islands, collections of rocks nowhere more than 600mm above the surface, appear and I circumnavigate them in a figure 8, lost in contemplation of the moss and shrubs clinging to them. By 5:15pm I have arrived at the Caroline Burn where some hard blasts of wind strike just 200 metres from the beach and I have to feather the oars and pull hard. The inner roll of tent had frozen together, but it is Goretex and a period of heat from the lantern drove out the moisture.
Wednesday : A glorious sunny day once the sun rose at about 9am but a westerly wind made me decide to stay off the lake. Later the sky clouded and I could see rain falling on the ranges to the east and south. I spent the day sitting on a fallen tree reading, moving out into the breeze when the sandflies became too annoying. No rain fell and the wind and waves remained moderate ... I could have gone rowing.
Thursday : A sunny dawn but overcast by 11:15 when I launched. I rowed about 80 metres up the Caroline Burn, secured the dory on some dead trees and walked a little further to see a lovely waterfall tumbling down amongst mossy boulders. Onward to the island near the bottom of the lake where I landed in bright sunshine and found a pond about 30 x 10 metres surrounded by bog. A native pigeon flew noisily by and landed in a tall kowhai tree. Then a short row across the lake to the site where the New Zealand Deerstalkers Association Rata Burn hut used to be. Here I learned to row some 26 or 27 years before in a borrowed 12' plywood dinghy while my father and others built the hut. The hut burnt down some years ago and DOC refused consent to replace it. The remains have been removed and the site is now covered in ferns.
Another two or three hundred metres on I beached the boat near the lake outlet and followed fresh deer tracks along the beach to the river's edge. In some spots the deer had obviously reared up to pull vegetation from overhead trees. About 100 metres down the river is a three wire bridge which gives access to the Hump Track which leads out to Blue Cliffs Beach on the coast. From the bridge I spot an eel about 800mm long. The river is two to three metres deep at this point and rolls by very swiftly; it is said to have the highest rate of fall in NZ. That night I pitch camp in falling rain below the old NZDA hut site. Later wind gusts sweep through and small waves break on the beach. A half-moon sometimes lights up the lake and surrounding mountains and stars are visible through gaps in the clouds.
Friday : Up late to a sunny day I skirt the southern end of the island and cross to Teal Bay. A wide path leads to a hut in a big clearing. Inside is a series of newspaper articles about a missing German tramper who had stayed in the hut in February and the eventual finding of his body in a stream. Laminated together with these is a list of 'do's and don'ts' for travel in the bush. Travelling alone is a "don't." Back on the lake the wind rises and the lake chops up so I cross back to the western side under the lee of the mountains and work slowly up to the Caroline Burn for a stretch.
From there I row to the next point where a moderate wind and chop rise. I want to camp in the vicinity of Mary Island tonight so head across the lake again. About half-way across the chop steepens and the wind gusts but I can see the shadow on the water in good time to lean into each gust. The wind continues to freshen over the next 20-30 minutes; it's time to get off the lake while I still have some choices. A beach about 30 metres long is downwind and looks like a good option, although very exposed, with waves breaking on it. Beaching is uneventful on small, smooth pebbles. On other beaches the stones have been rough. A flat spot just below the bush serves as a campsite with the tent secured to a driftwood log on one side. The beach is totally exposed to the north, but the view is magnificent – up past Mary Island to the Rooney River and beyond to snow-clad mountains with white clouds backlit by the setting sun swirling around their tops. To the west sheets of spray are whipped off the lake surface as the wind increases and the waves, growing bigger, break loudly on the beach.
Saturday : The wind blew all night and through the day until just after 2pm when the waves quietened and there was no obvious wind shadow up the lake. The southern shore of Mary Island is stunningly beautiful with tiny coves formed by massive lichen-covered, moss-capped rocks. Occasional trees grow on the rocks, like giant bonsai, their roots twist over the rock and hold in a crack. It is absolutely calm and I drift alongside perfectly content, until the shoreline changes and the spell unwinds. Late afternoon in light rain I pitch camp on the shore north and east of Mary Island. Heavy rain arrives with the dark and I bail the boat at ten.
Sunday : Rain continues all day and I bail the boat several times, walk along the beach noting deer sign and a pigeon in a kowhai tree. A fantail flits around the tent, and the day passes pleasantly with reading, sleeping and writing.
Monday : A clear sky at dawn so I set out to find the Maori burial cave on Mary Island. Rediscovered in 1967 by George Evans, this cave contains the remains of a woman of high rank who is thought to have died in about 1660. I remember visiting this cave as a child but memory has played me false and I can't relocate it. Through the gap between the island and the shore to the main body of the lake where a southerly chop and moderate breeze are against me as I cruise slowly down the western side of the island. Rowing backwards occasionally makes manoeuvring easier amongst the rocks and tiny islands and provides a change for the muscles. From the bottom of the island I angle across to Second Bay (so named on the sign near the road-end but not on maps) and skirt the shoreline into the bay, out the other side and around the point to First Bay. This bay is a wide sweep of golden-white sand gleaming in the bright sunlight and I row gently along it, pausing to admire a pigeon stripping tender leaves off a kowhai tree which overhangs the beach. Another perfect moment.
The shore leads me to the launching ramp. A car and trailer sit in the park but I haven't seen or heard another boat on the lake; they must have headed up to the north end of the lake. DOC forbids camping within two kilometres of the road end, a restriction I admire. So I go back to First Bay to camp for the night, content that the next day will see me back at the ramp on schedule, on my way to a hot shower. In the moonlit night, snow-clad mountains stand out and a meteorite falls.