Authors: Gerald Durrell
Now, quite apart from the rarity of the bird, this story alone would have made us want to try to see a live takahe in its natural surroundings, so the moment we had arrived in Wellington I had
applied for permission for us to go into the valley, accompanied, of course, by Brian to make sure we did not pinch any eggs or smuggle a couple of birds out under our coats. At last, to my
delight, permission was granted and we set off for Lake Te Anau. As I say, in the old days the only way into the valley was to walk, but now you can do it in comparative comfort. A tiny plane takes
you from Te Anau, flies you up the two thousand-odd feet to the valley and lands you on the small lake that covers most of the valley floor. Brian had organised the plane for us but we had
twenty-four hours to wait, so we stayed in a palatial hotel on the shores of Te Anau – which looked like a very large and benign Scottish loch – and luxuriated in wonderfully cooked
food, excellent wines and first-rate service and accommodation. The average New Zealand hotel is so appalling that we appreciated this government-run hostelry even more than we would have done
otherwise.
‘Make the most of this,’ said Brian as I was arguing with the head waiter as to what precise shade of red I wanted my Châteaubriand, ‘it’s going to be really rugged
when we get up into the valley.’
Warned by this, I ordered three bottles of wine instead of two.
The following morning there were two things that did not raise our spirits. Firstly, we heard that there was a small party of deer hunters occupying the hut in Takahe Valley and so there would
not be room for Jacquie to come with us, and secondly it seemed doubtful if we should be able to get off ourselves, for black clouds appeared in the sky over Te Anau and the visibility was totally
unsuitable for flying in that sort of terrain. All morning we paced the shores of the lake, cursing the weather. By lunchtime it had lifted slightly, but still did not look at all hopeful. Then
Brian – who had been keeping in constant touch with the float plane base by phone – appeared with a self-satisfied grin on his face.
‘Come on,’ he said. ‘Equipment down to the landing stage. They’ll be picking us up in about half an hour.’
‘Wonderful!’ said Chris, ‘but is the weather O.K. for flying?’
‘Not really,’ said Brian carelessly, ‘but they say better to go now and chance it than wait and have it close down on us so much that we can’t get into the valley. The
pilot thinks we should just about do it.’
‘Quite delightful,’ said Jim to Jacquie enthusiastically. ‘Aren’t you sorry you’re not coming, my dear – zooming up into all that cloud, looking for a valley
you won’t be able to see, and then when you get there, looking for a bird that you won’t be able to see as well? It’s been just one long series of thrills, this trip has.
Wouldn’t have missed it for the world.’
We got the equipment down to the jetty and it was there that Brian explained that the float plane, being minute, could only take two passengers as well as the pilot.
‘Well,’ said Chris, ‘I want you to go first, Jim, with the equipment . . .’
‘Why is it always
me?’
demanded Jim indignantly. ‘Aren’t there any other volunteers around here?’
‘Get as much film as you can of flying into the valley,’ continued Chris, ignoring Jim’s indignation, ‘and then get set up and get shots of the plane coming in with the
rest of us.’
‘What happens if they dump me up there and then can’t get back?’ asked Jim. ‘Have you thought of that? I’d be stuck up there in a deserted valley full of ferocious
birds . . . no food . . . no companionship . . . and then in about ten years you come strolling up there, I suppose, and find my whitened bones stretched out in the mist . . . that’s old Jim,
you’ll say . . . nice enough chap in his way . . . better send a postcard to his wife. Ruddy unfeeling lot.’
‘Never mind, Jim,’ said Jacquie consolingly. ‘If you’re going ahead with the supplies, you’ll have Gerry’s bottles of Scotch.’
‘Ah!’ said Jim, brightening, ‘I don’t mind waiting a bit up there if I’ve got something to
eat –
that’s different.’
Presently a rather peevish humming made itself heard and soon the float plane appeared, zooming towards us, looking and sounding rather like an infuriated dragonfly. It touched down neatly on
the lake, turned and then came drifting up along the landing stage. We loaded the equipment while Jim asked the pilot which one of the Wright brothers
he
was, and did he think that the
flying machine would ever take the place of the horse. At length we bundled Jim, still protesting, into the plane and watched it skim across the surface of the lake and then rise into the air,
leaving a trail of white foam and tiny ripples behind it. In half an hour the plane was back, and this time it was Chris’s turn to go, taking the rest of the film gear with him. The pilot
said that conditions in the valley were perfectly all right for landing and take-off, but that the weather was closing in rapidly and we would have to get a move on. Chris flew off to join Jim, and
Brian and I paced the landing stage and peered anxiously at the dark clouds that appeared to be getting thicker and blacker with each passing second. At last the plane returned, Brian and I
clambered hurriedly into it, and we were soon shooting away across the lake.
Te Anau is a long lake and for some considerable time we flew along over the water, watching the steep, thickly forested mountains on either side of us. The forest was mainly composed of beech,
which had a dark green leaf, so the towering mountains looked rather gloomy and sinister. Then the pilot banked the plane and tucked it in closer to the mountainside which now looked twice as
gloomy and twice as steep. I have the normal person’s reactions to flying; that is to say, I am always convinced that either the pilot is going to die of heart failure at a crucial moment or
that both wings are going to drop off when one is taking off or landing or halfway there – this, of course, in a big plane. In a small plane I feel fairly safe: it’s like the difference
between riding in a high-powered car and on a bicycle. If you fall off a bicycle you think you won’t be hurt and so I always get the ridiculous but comforting feeling that to crash in a small
plane would be something you would scarcely notice, except for a few small bruises. However, our pilot now started to fly the plane closer and closer to the towering hillside and I began to wonder
if crashing in a small plane
was
quite as painless as I had always thought. Then, quite suddenly, the thing that I had dreaded for years happened: the pilot appeared to go mad at the
controls. He banked sharply and then started to fly straight at the mountainside. At first I thought he was merely going to fly up and over them, but he kept heading for them determinedly. By now
we could see the tops of the individual trees quite clearly, and they were approaching at an alarming speed. Just as I had accepted death as the inevitable result of the pilot’s manoeuvres,
and the trees were only a few hundred feet away, a narrow crack (it can be dignified with no other term) appeared in the mountainside and into this we zoomed. This crack was the gorge that led into
Takahe Valley and through which the lake drained down into Te Anau far below. The gorge had high, waterworn cliffs on each side, thickly covered with beech, and it was just – but only just
– wide enough to take the plane. At one point the trees were so close to our wingtips that I swear you could have leant out and gathered a bunch of leaves. Mercifully, the gorge was not very
long and within half a minute we emerged, unscathed, and there ahead of us lay Takahe Valley.
The valley is some three miles long, somewhat oval in shape, surrounded by steep hillsides thickly covered with beech. The floor of the valley is astonishingly flat and the greater part of it is
covered by the calm and shallow waters of Lake Orbell. The lake, of course, lay at the end nearest to the gorge up which we had flown, but at the other end of the valley the flat ground was covered
with great meadows of snow grass. As we flew over the lake the view was breathtakingly beautiful: in the distance, against a dark and stormy sky, we could see the higher peaks of the Murchison
mountains, each wearing a jagged crown of snow; the mountainsides that sloped into the valley were this sombre dark green, relieved here and there with patches of paler, sage green; the lake was
silver and looked as though it had been varnished, and the meadows of snow grass were golden and bright green in the fitful sunshine that kept trying to break through the dark skies. We had to fly
down the full length of the valley and then bank and turn to come in to land, for this was the only way you could get down to the lake. Just as the plane was dropping lower and lower and the silver
waters of the lake were coming rushing up to meet us, the pilot, in a laconic manner, obviously thinking that the information would be of particular interest to me at this juncture, told me that
the lake was about twelve hundred yards long – just long enough, in fact (provided you did not misjudge in any way), to land the plane on. A slight miscalculation and you would go gliding
gracefully off the end of the lake and into the gorge we had just flown up. I could see what he meant, for we touched down and raced along the water, leaving an ever-widening isosceles triangle of
silver ripples behind us, and eventually came to a halt with a hundred feet or so to spare at the other end of the lake. The pilot switched off the engine and grinned over his shoulder at us.
‘Well, here you are,’ he said, ‘Takahe Valley.’
He opened the door of the plane and the thing that struck me immediately was the complete and utter silence. If it had not been for the very faint lapping of the water around the floats of the
plane you would have imagined that you had been struck deaf. In fact, so acute was the silence that I swallowed hard several times, thinking that the altitude had affected my ears. Two hundred feet
away, on the banks of the lake, Jim was filming our arrival and we could hear the noise of his camera as clearly as if he had been standing next to us. This silence had an extraordinary effect on
one: we instinctively lowered our voices, and as we started to unload the gear every slight sound we made seemed magnified out of all proportion. The only way to get the gear ashore was to take off
our shoes and socks, roll up our trousers and hump the stuff on our backs. Stepping out of the plane into eighteen inches of lake water was an experience I prefer to forget; I had never realised
that water could be so cold without actually turning into ice. Brian and I made two trips out to the plane and back before we got the gear landed, and by then my legs were so numb with cold from
the knees downwards that I felt as though they had been amputated. Also I had dropped one of my shoes in the lake, which had not improved my temper. Chris, standing behind Jim and the camera, wore
his dispeptic llama look.
‘Er – Gerry?’ he called. ‘I wonder if you’d mind just doing that once more. I wasn’t satisfied with the angle of the shot.’
I glared at him with chattering teeth.
‘Oh, no, I don’t mind a bit,’ I said sarcastically, ‘my dear fellow – anything for art. You wouldn’t like me to take all my clothes off and swim across the
lake, would you? You’ve only to say the word. They say with all these new drugs pneumonia’s easy to care nowadays.’
‘Do it a bit slower this time,’ said Jim, grinning. ‘You know, as if you’re really enjoying it.’
I made a rude gesture at them and Brian and I picked up our things and trudged back to the plane. Eventually Chris was satisfied and we were allowed to climb out of the lake.
The pilot gave us a final wave, slammed the door of the plane shut, taxied down to the other end of the lake and then roared towards us. He flew about seventy feet over our heads and then
vanished into the gorge; gradually the sound of his engine became fainter and then, blanketed by the trees, disappeared altogether and the silence enveloped us once more: suddenly the valley seemed
very lonely and remote.
Just around the other side of the lake from where we stood with the piled equipment we saw a small, corrugated hut, about the size of the average garden toolshed, standing at a point where the
tree line ended and the snow grass rim of the lake began.
‘What’s that?’ enquired Jim with interest.
‘That’s the hut,’ said Brian.
‘What, you mean the place we’ve got to live in?’ asked Jim incredulously. ‘But it’s not big enough for one person let alone four.’
‘There’ll be seven of us in it tonight,’ said Brian. ‘Don’t forget the deer hunters.’
‘Yes, where are they by the way?’ I asked, for the hut had all the appearance of being deserted, and the long tin chimneystack (that looked as though it had been borrowed from one of
the very early steam engines) was innocent of even the faintest wisp of smoke.
‘Oh, they’ll be out in the hills somewhere,’ said Brian. They’ll be back this evening I expect.’
The hut, when we finally got to it, turned out to be a structure approximately eight feet wide by twelve feet long. At one end were two wooden bunks that looked as though they had been filched
from one of the lesser known and more repulsive concentration camps. In one side of the hut was a largish plate-glass window, an astonishing refinement that gave you a magnificent view down the
full length of the valley, and at the opposite end from the bunks was a fireplace. It seemed to us, at first sight, that by the time we had got all the equipment inside we would all have to sleep
outside, including the deer hunters. However, after much arguing and sweating, we managed to get all the equipment stacked into the hut and leave the bunks and a medium-sized area of floor space
free. But for seven people to sleep in there was obviously going to be an extremely tight squeeze, to say the very least. The hunters had left a note pinned to the table, welcoming us and saying
that they had left firewood and water ready, and for this we were extremely grateful. So while Jim and Chris went over the camera and recording gear, Brian and I hung out various wet garments on an
improvised washing line in the fireplace, lit the fire and put the kettle on for some tea.