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Takaka Hill tracks and roads

This story provides additional information about early access over Takaka Hill.

Climber: Takaka Hill Road by chillicheese (Flickr image). Click to enlarge

George Murray and party left Riwaka 25 April 1844 to climb over the Pikikiruna range (Takaka Hill) looking for a route for a bridle road. They crossed the range about where Lindsays bridge is today in the Takaka Valley. Murray reported back that a bridle road was feasible further "southward" of where they had crossed the range. That is, where the road is today. Thirty-four years later there was a bridle road there.

Pikikiruna track

The first Pakeha track (Pikikiruna track) was formed in 1857, before Upper Takaka was surveyed. It was made for the goldminers to get to Collingwood, not far from where George Murray had crossed  the range.  The same year, the Government set the rules for the Collingwood gold fields.  The track was too steep for horses; the mailman used a donkey.

For the Takaka Hill traveller the track ended at Long Ford Crossing (Takaka River), where the river was very wide and shallow. This crossing was used by both Charles Heaphy and George Murray. From the Crossing, there was a road, of sorts, to Takaka -  the only road to Takaka for fifty years, until 1893.

On the Riwaka side of the Takaka Hill, the Pikikiruna track followed the ridge from, what is now, the Marahau Road, and only a short distance from todays road (SH60).

The bridle track

Takaka survey district, annotated with routes of Takaka Hill crossings (map supplied by Mac Harwood)
Click image to enlarge

Upper Takaka settlers Daniel and Henry Bate agitated for a trap track (bridle track). The Takaka Rd Board asked the Bate brothers to cut a line of road further south of the Pikikiruna track.

They accepted the offer and cut a line of road from Upper Takaka to Kairuru.  The 2.1 metre bridle track was surveyed and formed by 1878. Mud in the winter was still a problem.

The coach road 

The Bate brothers then wanted a coach gravelled road over the hill.  In 1886, they went to see the minister of the Public Works Department in Wellington. He told them he had been over the line of road and was pleased with what he saw.  The Bate brothers' line of road was used but the gradient on the Takaka side was reduced from 1 in 12 to 1 in 16 which lengthened the road and only about one fifth of the bridle track was widened. The rest was new excavations.

The Takaka Hill road was finished about 1900. Tenders were still being called about 1895. Bates bridle track and the new road crossed in several places, so both bridle track and road were used for about twelve years, where it was convenient. The last secion of construction was the Eureka bend area.

There is one stretch of the current road (SH 60) which has been used by all routes crossing the Takaka Hill. - used by Charles Heaphy, George Murray, the Pikikiruna Track, Bates' bridle track and the coach road. This is the narrow section of the ridge between the Kairuru Farm turnoff and the limeworks, a stretch of about fifty metres.

Mac Harwood is collating  a history of roads in the Upper Takaka area.
2009

Sources used in this story

Want to find out more about the Takaka Hill tracks and roads ? View Further Sources here.

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