Watkin Dungeon (Waikouaiti, Otago) Traditional Cache
Hidden : 11/23/2014
Difficulty:
2 out of 5
Terrain:
3 out of 5

Size: Size: regular (regular)

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Geocache Description:


If you’re exploring Watkin Castle, you’ll want to see the castle Dungeon down by the North Branch of the Waikouaiti River.

ACCESS PERMISSION AND KEY REQUIRED

Although this reserve is very scenic, it’s definitely a prison.
It’s surrounded by an impassable deer fence with a massive padlocked gate. So, you first have to come to an arrangement with the Castle Gaoler for access permission and a "special tool" - the key to the gate – see below for details.

NOTE: Each log of a visit to the Dungeon MUST include a statement that access permission was obtained from the DCC.


Once you have access permission and the gate key, cache your way up Watkin Rd and along Kerr Road to the locked gate. Unlock the left-hand gate (with the Watkin Reserve sign on it). Drive down the road to the suggested parking spot, or a bit further to the woolshed if you are confident that your car can get back up the hill.

Walk down the 4WD track until you reach a grassy clearing with a small pond. Turn downhill past this pond to pick up the track again.

Most of the track is in secondary kanuka regrowth, following logging, but you will pass through one damp gully with lovely matai-totara / ribbonwood-kowhai-broadleaf forest. You might see riflemen!

At an appropriate point, leave the 4WD track and follow your nose to the cache. It’s on a sunny knoll with a view of Mount Watkin/Hikaroroa, ideal for lunch or an afternoon tea stop. You’ll find the 1.6 litre screwtop just hanging around hoping for prison visitors.

It’s an easy stroll downwards, but the climb from the cache back to the car is 3 km and a 240 m ascent, taking about an hour and ten minutes uphill.




After visiting the cache, you may enjoy exploring a bit further. You can keep following the 4WD track steeply down to Watkin Creek and then walk down the stream bed to reach the Waikouaiti River. (The old farm track sort-of continues on the other side of the stream, up to what were paddocks on the next spur.) Or, from the cache site, drop off the end of the spur and follow animal tracks steeply down through open kanuka scrub to the Waikouaiti riverbank.

Regarding pest control, on our trip to the Dungeon we saw two pest tracking tunnels and also one kunikuni, a lot of pig rooting, five goats, a sheep with lamb at foot and two abandoned Timms traps lying in the middle of the track. When you return the gate key, feedback on any pests you saw would be appreciated by the Parks Officer.



Mt Watkin/Hikaroroa was originally part of a larger area of endowment land [income from leasing out endowment land was used to fund specific borough activities, eg schools]. When Pakeha (J T Thomson) wrote about his ramble up Mt Watkin in 1872 (ODT 26 Feb 1872) he found Kerr Rd already surveyed in preparation for logging. After the accessible timber was taken out the land was leased for firewood harvesting and cattle and sheep grazing. You’ll walk past a woolshed and hut dating from this farming period.

In 2004 the DCC bought out the lease and in 2005 the Mt Watkin/Hikaroroa Scenic reserve was gazetted, with the remainder of the land sold. The reserve was officially opened in 2010, with an open day hosted by the Taieri Recreational Tramping Club (Route description).

Every proper castle has a skeleton hanging in the dungeon … in the case of Mt Watkin/Hikaroroa Scenic Reserve, the skeleton seems to be boundary surveying anomalies. Along the northern and eastern reserve boundaries, the historic fencelines differ from the legal boundary by up to 20 m. Generously, the adjacent farmer is allowing this fenced-in land to be managed as a de-facto part of the reserve while the problem is sorted. An additional problem is the Kerr Road access to the reserve – in some places the road formation is not on the legal road alignment.

The reserve management plan calls for provision of public access, balanced against the reserve’s primary purpose of protection of ecological and cultural values. At present public access is restricted. The DCC Parks Manager states this is because of the lack of carparking, lack of signage, and pest control operations and "until this is remedied we have not encouraged general access but ask anyone interested to seek permission".

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 the key, 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 Lloyd, Kelvin Michael. 2008
Available from Dunedin Library - McNab Collection City Library 574.5264 ECO or Waikouaiti Library 578.0993 ECO visit link

Additional Hints (No hints available.)



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