>>1985122 >getting close to centre of the summit when bro calls out that he can see a group of cabbage trees growing ahead of us
>these kinds of trees naturally grow in swampy soil, which means there must be some kind of spring up here
>go in to check it out but come upon something we did not expect
>a square post had been hammered into the earth at the head of a very large pit, it was painted white, and marked with a black ‘B’, and looked weathered but reasonably newish
>at the bottom of a small dip nearby was a clear but marshy pool of water
>wtf
>Bro and Mate gather around and try to work out what we are looking at
>Mate (a geology student): Maybe it was from a soil survey or something?
>when I hear this I am reminded of a field trip me and my History class went on to an excavation. At the time I was studying History at Victoria University
>Me: Nah bro, this is from an excavation
>it then dawns on me, the pits
>Me: Neither of you stepped in any of those pits, right?
>Bro and Mate say no and ask why
>Me: cus they’re probably old maori sites or something
>now when I said this it was purely out of scholarly concern for disrupting a dig site, however it did occur to me that it was odd that a site such as this was neither sign-posted to prevent entry, or was clearly abandoned a while ago, guess that like the forestry management the iwi probably flipped their shit because of something and called the dig off
>figure that the ancient maori must’ve used this place as a pa (fortress) back in the day, god knows with the source of fresh water the place is perfect for it
>and this entire time we have about 20 or so fantails following us
>we head back to the outer edge of the summit to find a camp site, run into another dig marker marked ‘E’, and figure that there must be dozens of dig sites around
