Thread: An area of Pureora Forest

Hi there.
@northdude, Craig and I went for a 13k loop wander through Northern Pureora off the end of Tolley road yesterday. Our first time on that loop we went in from the Tolley Rd Poled access and South wards along the contours and spurs until we hit the Pine plantation where the 4wd camp is., followed the road and track back out in a big loop

We were all shocked at the lack of sign, uneaten good browse in the clearings and lack of activity poop and animal tracks on the clearings. Such a beautiful piece of bush but what really blew us away was the lack of bird song and it took an hour and a half to get busted by a wood pigeon, saw one fantail and heard 3 tui's - The bush was eerily quiet... man it was sad

We did manage to get busted by a couple of animals but this was in a area a couple of hundred meters before we came out into the pines. We then did a mission out going along the road to the track looping back northwards to the farm we started on - You'll see the track on your topo map a little bit of pig sign on the track itself but no animals seen there. From the exit of the track its still a good hike back across the farm (via indicated track) to get to the Doc Carpark at the road end. Fortunately when we got to the top of the first paddocked hill we ran into the farmer who had been out spraying (which was great as we could ask advice as to the best route out as we didn't want to disturb any of his stock as the track route itself shown is actually quite confusing based on the layout of the paddocks and undulations) He's a really good old bugger and offered us a ride back to the carpark on the back tray of the tractor. Sweet Our legs certainly thank you today.

So my advice to you is if you wanted to hunt that northern block section is to drive into the 4wd camp from the Barryville or similar access points park up at the road ends and hunt into the bush from there around there. It had rained heavily (36mm) two days earlier so gave a pretty good idea of what was there although I'd have to say the numbers were very low tho.