Pororari River Track

A simple track running out from Punakaiki alongside the Pororari River and in this case making a round trip of it by turning right onto the Inland Pack Track and walking back into town.

Beach looking south from Punakaiki

April 2019 and the autumn has been idyllic thus far. Today is a little cooler though and my polar fleece stayed on for the first ¾ hr til I was in the shelter of the bush. For my trip today I had the limitation of being a party of one and thus no means of arranging a vehicle to collect me from the far end. Secondly I chose to park in the main carpark at the north end of the village and to proceed anti-clockwise around the loop. The weather was breezy and patchy with the chance of a shower.

Footbridge attached to the Punakaiki River road bridge

One of nearly a dozen hosses in the area.

I parked my vehicle, set the GPS tracking and noted the time at roughly 11:00am. I headed south via the toilets to the Punakaiki River bridge and thence up Waikori Rd. This is a public access road through a working farm, so keep the gates as you find them (which is generally closed). There were a number of horses up the farm road today, although they were all very placid, indeed barely interested in my being there at all.

The official information

After about half an hour (my pace varied from getting-a-move-on to dallying about and stopping to take photos), I arrived at the carpark on Waikori Rd at the start of the Inland Pack track. This measured 2.7km from where I had parked my vehicle. The DoC sign here states that the mouth of the Pororari River is 8km and 2 ½ hours away. This transpires to be somewhat at odds with my experience.

Just so you know

The Punakaiki swing bridge is an impressive affair

Starting point of the Inland Pack track

Track clearance

From here one crosses the Punakaiki swing bridge which is an impressively large and wide structure and shortly after finds the start of the Inland Pack track proper. It took me about ½ hr to reach the saddle and start heading back down toward the Pororari River. Just over the saddle I paused for about ¼ hr snack time during which it rained lightly. There has been some fairly large timber cut up here in maintaining the track after our recent cyclones. The track is great condition – quite honestly a wheelchair could navigate this track with relative ease, it is wide, well-graded and has a very even surface.

A manicured trackway if ever there was one

Wide bridge with easy lead-in edges

With dappled sunlight could it be any more inviting

A small (and quite isolated) patch of roots on the track

Dad Weka preening and daughter weka sunbathing

Mum joins in the fun

Sneak peek out to the surrounding karst

There seemed to be a large volume of water coming down the Pororari River, so it must have been raining up in the catchment quite a bit over the past 12-24 hours. I met a couple at the junction of the Inland Pack and Pororari River tracks. They asked if I thought it was worth them making a loop of it back the way I’d just come. I said ‘no’ at the time, but now that I’ve done the Pororari River track portion I’d say ‘yes’. The Pororari River section is ok but I did like the Inland Pack track bit better even though it would have ended in a road-walk for them as it had started for me.

Lush fernery

Photo-shy fantail

Pororari River track is slightly bumpier

...and has some steps

I didn’t note how long it took me to walk down the Pororari River track but I’d guess at a little over 1 hour. I arrived at the Pororari River carpark at 2:00pm and ¼ hr later was back at the main carpark in the village. Overall my tracking measured 10.75km. So less the 2.7km from the main carpark to the start of the track and less the 1.3 km from the Pororari River carpark back to the main one leaves only 6.75km of intervening walking track proper, not 8km as suggested on the DoC sign. My GPS says I was only moving for 2 hours of the 3 ¼ hours I was out – although I’m sure this is somewhat short-changing me as I know I spend at least ¾ hr hiking along the roads at each end. Altitude gain was 172m. Lovely place for a wander with ample bird life, lush vegetation and the occasional glimpse out of the bush to the surrounding limestone cliffs.