Reserves near Puketitiri, Wednesday 17 September 2025
Banner Photo: A huge tree deserves a hug
With a fairly light tramp planned for the day, we decided to have a very leisurely start by leaving half an hour later at 8am. Unfortunately, David (who had done some extensive planning for the trip) was taken ill and unable to come with us. On his way to the doctor in the morning, he dropped off the papers he had printed off on the planned trip to four Puketitiri reserves.
So we set off with all that documentation, which was great because most of us had only been to Ball’s Clearing before.
Some scrambling at the William Hartree Reserve
We arrived at William Hartree Reserve about 9am. The weather was definitely colder than Napier – but no hint of rain. We made our way up the access to the lodge, then into the track itself. The route was not the “easy” track that we had been expecting as it was quite rugged in places. In fact, when we got to the Tane track, it just seemed to disappear. By that stage, some of the party had retreated from the harder portions and were going back to the Kanuka track to return to the lodge. We all made it back safely to the van about 10am and pressed on to the next reserve in our list, which was Little Bush.
Little Bush Reserve was extensively cut for timber in the 1920s but since 1950, the Whittle family had fenced off this 12-hectare block from their farm to conserve what was left. They undertook persistent trapping for possums to keep the forest in a healthy condition. It was gifted to HB Forest and Bird Society in 1990 and the society has done an amazing job with track maintenance and signage in the last few years.
A tall, straight kahikatea
Before we started, we had morning tea where seats had been conveniently located close to the track start. It was essentially a circular track which took us through to about 11.30. We could have spent longer just reading all the names of the trees we passed.
From there, we went in search of the mysterious Hutchinson Scenic Reserve. This was apparently a separate reserve from the Hutchinson Domain which is on the main road. We travelled to where we thought it was, not far from the old DoC base at Puketitiri, but there was no signage to help. After travelling down the road further, we decided it had probably been closed to public access. Looking online since our meander, I found a brochure of HB walks from 2017 which included that reserve, but the same brochure updated in 2020 didn’t include it. Fairly conclusive evidence that it is no longer accessible.
By that stage, it was midday so we travelled onward to the car park for Ball’s Clearing. Again, there were some beautiful examples of our native trees with some larger specimens that escaped the felling in the 1920s and a devastating fire in 1945 when there was a severe drought in the area.
Ball’s Clearing Reserve
In all the reserves, we heard many birds but Ball’s Clearing seemed to have the most. They included the grey warbler, shining cuckoo and kereru. We were all finished by 2pm and took the scenic route home via Hawkstone Rd, Waihau Rd and Dartmoor Rd towards Puketapu. We detoured on the way to go over the new bridge at Puketapu and back again, viewing the extensive works there. After a break at the Puketapu Hotel for refreshments, we headed back to Napier at about 3pm.
Trampers: John Holschier, Pam Millard, Tony Pluymers, Selina Chilton, Ted Angove, Rob Vork, Bruce Hodgson, Geoff Donkin, Marie Deroles, Mark Jenkins and reporter/driver Juliet Gillick
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