Watkin Turret (Waikouaiti, Otago) Traditional Cache
Watkin Turret (Waikouaiti, Otago)
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(regular)
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No doubt you’ve toured Lord Bitsprayer’s palatial stately home on Mount Watkin/Hikaroroa, Watkins Castle.
This is your chance to admire the view from the highest point of the Castle – Watkin Turret.
But, you know how difficult it is to get into a fortified castle turret....
ACCESS PERMISSION IS REQUIRED
The Castle Warder's contact details are below.
The volcanic boulderfields on Mount Watkin/Hikaroroa are a Naturally Uncommon Ecosystem, of national importance.
It's a privilege to be here - Tread lightly.
NOTE: Each log of a visit to the Turret MUST include a statement that access permission was obtained from the DCC.
The Turret staircase is short but steep: a 220 m climb from the carpark up to the trig at 616 m.
It takes only 45 mins to get up, shorter down. You will have to balance on somewhat unstable rocks, contend with gorse and spaniards, and if you're really lucky you may get dive-bombed by falcons nesting on the prominent pinnacles. That said, we have been up with children and they found it easier than some of the adults.
Wear appropriate footwear and, as always, be prepared for any type of weather.
Route:
• Park in the pull-off beside Mount Watkin Road, and walk up the bulldozed track.
• Climb over the barbed wire fence (it's an easy one).
• Follow the boundary fence uphill, in the cleared route between the fence and the gorse, until you reach the top corner of the fence.
• There is a clump of gorse between you and the mountain. Find the route through to the other side.
• Then walk through the tussock aiming just left of the prominent rock pinnacles.
• Find your way through the gaps in a patch of broadleaf/mapou bush and onto the base of the boulder field.
• Climb carefully up the boulder field, clamber up a rocky gully and onto the top ridge.
You're looking for a 2.3 litre black snaplock tucked under a rock, under a shrub... but nowhere prickly.
Please note that the small rock cairn on the ridgeline, just before you reach the trig, should not be disturbed - it contains the ashes of Douglas Aitcheson (1932-2006).
Watkin Castle is a very important fortress – it’s protecting the largest and best remaining example of dry coastal forest in Otago.
A number of plants found here are nationally or regionally uncommon. For example, as well as the usual golden spaniard you'll be stabbed by a finer-leaved pale green spaniard Aciphylla glaucescens, which is rare in Dunedin and vulnerable to grazing. You might also see a type of wild carrot with blue-green leaves on the rock outcrops, Gingidia grisea, only found in North Otago. It's at its southernmost distributional limit here.
The mountain’s Maori name, Hikaroroa, is that of a Kāi Tahu tūpuna/ancestor from the Araiteuru canoe wrecked nearby at Shag Point/Makataea. The stranded warrior turned to stone at daybreak, just like the baskets, calabashes, and kumaras washed ashore at Moeraki Beach.
The European name, Mount Watkin, commemorates the bringing of Christianity and literacy to the region by the missionary James Watkin. The change of name was recommended by Kāi Tahu rangatira Rawiri Te Maire after Watkin’s departure in 1844. The official name is now Mount Watkin/Hikaroroa.
Biography of James Watkin (1805–86) from Encyclopaedia of New Zealand
James Watkin was born in Manchester in 1805. While still young he felt the call to preach and in 1830 was accepted as a candidate for the Wesleyan Ministry. In the same year he married Hannah Entwistle and they sailed with a missionary party to Tonga. The work of the mission was jeopardised by prolonged and involved struggles between Christian and non-Christian Tongan chiefs; Watkin faced alone the danger of tribal warfare, but the experience left him depressed and exhausted. On his removal with his family to Sydney in September 1837 he prayed for a return home to England. Instead, when John Jones offered a free passage for a missionary appointed to Waikouaiti, where Jones had a whaling station, Watkin was selected for the post and arrived there in May 1840. Here he established the first mission station in the South Island.
Watkin found the whaling settlement of Waikouaiti a centre of violence, licentiousness, and drunken depravity. Thoroughly disliking the corrupted Maoris and convinced that they were doomed to extinction, and disgusted by the brutality and vices of his fellow Europeans, Watkin laboured without hope, in the bitterness of exile and with deepening depression and distress. In spite of an abhorrence for his situation he established schools at Waikouaiti and Matanaka, and stationed partly trained Maori teachers at Stewart Island and at Moeraki. He had a natural flair for languages, preached in Maori four months after his arrival, and compiled an elementary reading book to be printed in Ngai Tahu. In November 1840 Watkin was greatly disturbed by Bishop Pompallier's visit to Otago. When, however, this was followed by Anglican intrusion – for Bishop Selwyn visited Otago in January 1844 
– Watkin thought of withdrawing his own Maori teachers and abandoning the field. Never reconciled to his position at Waikouaiti, Watkin was relieved by Charles Creed and in June 1844 he sailed for Wellington, leaving 227 church members in Otago.
In 1855 Watkin settled in New South Wales, and was president of the National Methodist Conference at Adelaide in 1862. He retired in 1869 and died on 14 May 1886, at Ashfield, New South Wales.
Biography of Rawiri Te Maire (1807 – 1899) from Maori and Missionary
Rawiri Te Maire was a rangatira of considerable standing in the Mission days. He was born at the Punaterakao pa and belonged to the Ngati Kuriapa hapu of the tribe. As a boy he lived at Lake Hawea, but had to flee with his people from the invader Te Puoho, who, bent on exterminating the southern natives, had travelled overland from the West Coast with a taua party, leaving a trail of blood and desolation as he passed on to Tuturau in 1836-37.
[Tuturau war memorial S46 13.411, E168 51.469; cache Tuturau Reserve].
Te Maire became the constant companion of Watkin on his visitation tours by sea and land, and became, after training, an acceptable preacher and pastor. He was married by Mr Watkin to Heikura [Heikiora] on June 19th, 1841. They had one son, Henare (Henry). As a teacher and preacher he faithfully discharged his duties and watched his charge with a solicitude and anxiety rarely equalled. It was due to Te Maire that the name of the hill Hikororoa, near Waikouaiti, was changed to Mt Watkin. Upon the removal of the Rev. George Stannard, the mission station being vacant, he assisted the Anglican Church. Te Maire died on August 16th, 1899, said to be 91 years of age, and was buried in the Karitane Cemetery, a few feet away from the old Wesleyan Mission Station.
Arranging ACCESS PERMISSION for the Mt Watkin/Hikaroroa Scenic Reserve
Book online at https://eservices.dunedin.govt.nz/facilities/facility/hikaroroa-mount-watkin or email the Parks Booking Team at sportbook@dcc.govt.nz.
The DCC will contact you to give permission and arrange for a Kerr Rd gate key to be issued to you (pickup from the DCC reception in the Octagon). Be prepared to sign a bond for return of the key if asked. Note that if you don’t go on the date arranged (eg because of bad weather) you will have to contact the DCC again to get permission for access on another date.
Idea: if you have done the hard work of arranging access permission (and possibly the Dungeon key as well) and if you wouldn't mind the company of other geocachers, why not log a note on the cache page giving the date and time you're going?
Further Information:
• Pakeha ramble up Mt Watkin 1872 visit link
• DCC Mt Watkin Reserve Management Plan visit link
• Ecological survey of Mt Watkin Scenic Reserve, East Otago by Kelvin Lloyd 2008
Available from Dunedin Library - McNab Collection City Library 574.5264 ECO or Waikouaiti Library 578.0993 ECO visit link
• The Old Whaling Days: A History of Southern New Zealand from 1830 to 1840
by Robert McNab, Whitcombe and Tombs Limited, 1913
Appendix “G.” — Watkin's Journal, 1840. — Extract from the Journal of the Revd. James Watkin, the First European Preacher Stationed in the South Island of New Zealand visit link
• James Watkin – Pioneer Missionary by Roy Belmer 1978 visit link
• Maori and Missionary: Early Christian Missions in the South Island of New Zealand by T. A. Pybus, Reed Publishing (NZ) Ltd, 1954 visit link
• History and Traditions of the Maoris of the West Coast North Island of New Zealand Prior to 1840 by S. Percy Smith, Polynesian Society, 1910, New Plymouth
Te Puoho's West Coast (South Island) Raid and his Death. visit link
Additional Hints
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