Revelling in Brunner's wake

LAKE BRUNNER: Beauty in evening light.

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ROY SINCLAIR enjoys all Lake Brunner has to offer during a overnight stop while cycling between Greymouth and Christchurch.

In the footprints of New Zealand explorer Thomas Brunner, Arnold Valley Rd is my preferred route whenever travelling between Greymouth and Christchurch. A gem, the rural road runs from State Highway 7 at Stillwater and joins SH73 at Jackson.

Mostly, it follows the trans- alpine railway.

A highlight is the beautiful Lake Brunner, filling a deep glacial hollow and renowned for cunning oversized trout and fictional giant eels. Elevated on one side of the lake is the expanding town of Moana, where the TranzAlpine train makes brief stops on its daily return trip to Greymouth.

Glancing across the lake, evidence of human habitation is difficult to detect. Regenerating rain forests border lake shores. Dominating the skyline is the 1958-metre summit of Mt Alexander.

As much as I enjoy this place, until recent coast to coast bicycle journeys I had seen it only briefly as a traveller.

Moana is a convenient overnight stop. Arriving late one afternoon, typically hot, weary and decidedly unfit, a cold Monteith's and some passable cooking in my tiny motel kitchen are successful revivers.

Outside, the sky dotted with dark clouds is turning crimson in the lowering sunlight. I set out to explore on foot. A narrow footbridge, suspended on wire ropes, leads across the brooding Arnold River which flows broad and swiftly from the lake.

In the quietness I hear the occasional "plop" of a brown trout that rises to catch a hovering insect morsel.

A Department of Conservation sign reveals the lake's poetic Maori name, Kotuka Whakaoho. It means "Flapping of white heron wings".

I pause to photograph an eye- catching classic yacht.

The sky promises a blazing orange sunset. Glancing inland towards the mountains hiding Arthur's Pass I watch a rain shower, the aftermath of an alpine thunder storm, move towards Moana.

Spots of rain send me scurrying to shelter at the railway station. Waiting for the shower to pass I ponder the lake's better known European name.

Thomas Brunner was arguably New Zealand's greatest early European explorer. His epic 550-day journey from Nelson to south Westland and back in 1847 and 1848 captures one's imagination more so than any other pioneering New Zealand expedition.

Brunner travelled with four Maori companions - two were women - who taught him how to walk barefoot, and how to survive by eating native plants and catching wildlife. Incessant rain and unmapped and untracked forest would have robbed the journey of the same pleasures I can enjoy following in the footprints of then 25-year-old Brunner.

He ventured as far as Paringa. Having injured his ankle he decided to give up.

He wrote of his decision to, "turn my face homewards; first to rejoin my own natives, and to see the face of a white man, and hear my native tongue."

During their return journey to Nelson, he and his Maori friends camped beside the lake that now has Brunner's name. I ponder their torturous journey during which the first European eyes must have seen the splendour of south Westland's glaciers.

A train of West Coast coal, en route to Port Lyttelton, thunders through the station. The rain eases. Weakening sunlight spreads golden across the lake.

Did Brunner enjoy such a beautiful sunset?

He is best remembered for having eaten his faithful dog, Rover. He did so to survive hunger.

Brunner commented, wryly, it tasted "like a combination of mutton and pork".

A coalmine near Stillwater also bears the explorer's name.

It was the scene of tragedy on March 26, 1896, when 65 men and boys perished following an underground explosion.

- © Fairfax NZ News