The Cache
The cache is a cammoed mint tin. BYO pencil please.
It sits directly at the far end of the Silverstream golf driving range near impressive 'Hato Petera' (saint Peter), a Rahui pole carved to mark the reserve as Tapu, and to remind us to look after the trees. The post was carved from one of five Totara logs dug out of the stream banks.
The totara seat has it's own whakapapa, as it was donated by Ōrongomai Marae, Upper Hutt, where it sat outside the Wharenui (meeting house). It was the bench, or Paepae, that leaders and orators rose from to express their point of view. The bench has been given the name 'Hikurangi', the original name of the stream.
A second Rahui stands at the other end of the walkway near st Pat's school, and is appropriately named after saint Patrick. I've placed the cache a respectful distance from the Rahui; and of course a nearby mystery cache.
How to get to the walkway
Park at the end of Country Lane in Silverstream. Walk NE along the Hutt River Trail for 250m to Māwaihākona Stream. Walk off the Trail to the fence on the NE bank of the stream, you'll see the walkway. Follow it to the concrete bridge and cross it. At the time of publication there are no published maps of this network of tracks, which can also be accessed via Heretaunga Park (right side of the toilet block); so I've included one at the bottom of the description.
The Māwaihākona Stream
This cache series straddles the Māwaihākona Stream walkway which runs through farmland beside St Pat's College in Silverstream.
The trails have been created as part of a podocarp forest restoration project by the Friends of the Mawaihakona group lead by Bart Hogan. About 6000 podocarp forest trees have been planted including matai, pukatea, totara, lacebark, and wineberry. They replaced alders, willows, broom, gorse and blackberry, cleared by the group. As the native trees grow they will shade the stream and kill the weeds choking it.
Please look after children around the water and place the cache back as you found it, thanks.
