>>1985117>Bro puts us on a bearing and I take point to cut a path through the blackberry >Hot work but as the slope builds the undergrowth drops off, but we are now walking up a 45 degree slope thick with slippery pine needles
>Mate finds it weird that there are no birds around, put it down to the forest being too monocultural, still strange though
>the pines are so old and so close together that we cannot see ahead to the cliffs, and hardly see the sky
>no sign of the old trail either
>stop to ask Bro if we are on the right bearing
>Bro: My watch hasn’t updated our position in the last couple hundred meters, idk if it’s because the trees are too thick or what. Just keep going uphill
>do so, and eventually run almost straight into a sheer cliff-face, with no sign of the trail or any way up
>reckon we drifted to the left, and cut back into the thick of the pines to loop right
>slope is so steep by this point that we are having to reach up and get a hold of pine trunks and branches to pull ourselves up
>realise that if this forest was meant to be harvested they’ve done a piss-poor job of managing it, wouldn’t be the first time forestry land was left to go to shit because the maori iwi owning the land flipped the table
>reach out for a root to hold onto, and when it comes away from the pine needles I realise it’s not a root but an old wooden plank
>I can make out another one just above me
>inform the boys that we have found the trail
>follow the now constant trail of old retaining boards and find the pines growing thinner as we go higher
>come out at a scrubby little clearing at the base of a very steep vertical gully in the cliff faces, and see the remains of old wooden stairs set into the rock
