The Spoils of Roar
Why place a cache here?
Close to this cache location is a large flattish area covered in gorse, pretty much the only plant that is capable of growing in this ground at the moment. The soil under the gorse comprises all of the rock and subsoil that was not of the right quality or composition to build the new 5.5 km section of SH2 that runs from Te Marua to Kaitoke, built between 2003 and 2005. The vast majority of the soil excavated to make the new section of road was used to form the road bed. The stuff that was dug up and didn’t make the grade—the spoils—was trucked up here from the working face of the road along the top part of the track that is now referred to as the Pylon Loop Track and was tipped into the shallow valley at this point. The track that you will have walked along to get here had such a wide gap between the trees because they needed a tipper truck highway that was wide enough for 2 of the big trucks to pass each other: somewhat wider than a normal forestry road. Many trees from the pine plantation had to be cut down to build this section of the track, which did not exist prior to the road-building.
The top section of the Pylon Loop Track when it was in daily use as a dump-truck highway
What the track looked like 10 years later when the cache was placed: Christmas 2013
The 'smaller' trucks that were used for this job ‘only’ carried 40 tons, the newer trucks could manage 50 tons, though they were physically pretty much the same size. There were 5 of these big trucks working on the project (2 x 40 tons and 3 x 50 tons).
A 50 ton truck on the left and two 40 tonners on the right – those wheels are 1.5 metres in diameter!
Not surprisingly the diesel engine you need to shift such a big truck roars quite loudly, as do the engines of the diggers that can fill such a truck in just a few scoops and the engines of the scrapers that consolidate and level out the road bed. Of all the machinery used on the project the scrapers roared by far the loudest and disturbed the peace for the Kaitoke residents and farm stock, day in, day out.
One of the two scrapers – makes the bulldozer on the left look tiny – the wheels are 2 metres in diameter!
Then for a couple of weeks at Christmas 2003 they all fell silent and the entire fleet of assorted heavy machinery was parked up close to the highway in a neat long line for the Christmas break.
The work force at rest for the Christmas break
That gave us a chance on Boxing Day to walk onto the work site for the first time ever and inspect the machinery, plus walk the length of what was to become the road surface and then along the dump truck track to this point to have a look and see what all the noise had been about.
Two years after these photos were taken the road was finished and the new section opened just before Christmas 2005. Peace and quiet at last. But the spoils have remained as a blot on the hillside inside this little piece of Kaitoke and it seemed appropriate to place a cache here and tell people about a little piece of local history that they would never have even thought about without the wonders of Geocaching.
But wait...there's more!
Come March 2016 the Regional Council decided it was time to harvest all the pine trees on the land in this area and for the next 8 months we had intermittent roaring of machinery to put up with again. There was the occasional roar of chainsaws, the crash of the trees as they fell to the ground, followed in the days after by the much more continuous roar of the harvesting machines that pick up a felled tree, strip all the branches from its length in just a couple of seconds and then add the logs to a big stack awaiting collection. And of course the roar of the logging trucks when they collect the logs.
Finally, just before Christmas 2016, the job was finished (somewhat behind the original schedule), but we were left with a scene of utter devastation afterwards. Compare the photo below with those earlier in the cache description of what the track used to look like when it went through the pine forest.
What the track looked like in January 2017 after the forest was logged
Getting to GZ
The cache is placed alongside a track on the Kaitoke Hill. When placed originally it used to be behind one of the pine trees close to the new GZ. The recommended way to get to the cache is along part of the Pylon Loop Track that runs through the pine forest above SH2. Turn off SH2 at the signpost that says 'Kaitoke Loop': if you miss the sign don't worry, the other end of Kaitoke Loop is one kilometre further along the highway (this applies whether you are driving from the Wairarapa or from Wellington). Kaitoke Loop is actually the original SH2, but was cut off and made into a quiet country road when the new section of highway was opened.
Access to the track is on foot through the underpass from the Parking waypoint. At the far side of the underpass turn right onto the Pylon Loop Track.
The spoils dumping area, Christmas 2013
The Cache
The cache is a 400 ml Sistema. At the time of replacement after the logging operations it contained a log book only, so please bring your own writing implement to sign the log. Found logs online that are not also in the written log will be removed unless you provide other evidence that you really did find the cache (e.g. a photo of the cache, but don't show its actual location).
When replacing the cache after signing the log please remember to replace it exactly how you found it, with suitable cover.