The Waitawheta River is strewn with remnants of old kauri logging industry. Weathered, stubborn pieces of infrastructure punctuate the track and make for a consistently immersive experience. Whereas the best signposting in current existence focusses on a binary, then/now relationship between history and present day, I think there is a much richer continuous process of usage in effect. A very legible economic/ecological story has generated the trail which exists at this moment.
The river curves in such a way that the typical "dam and release" system for log transport would have produced much wastage. Resulting from this; a compacted rock path, cleverly engineered to follow a shelf along the base of the gorge. Heavy concrete plinths mark the course where the trail darted across the river, maintaining straight lines most effective for the log 'bogie' carts, horses and engines.
Currently, tramping forms a new type of economy, the rock path is still the most efficient course of travel, and that which is most interesting for the recreational 'consumer'. Our suspension bridges trace the same route, a lighter infrastructure - not a stable 'present day' state, but just another layer of usage. The remains of which might be studied by a visitor in 2150, traversing the water upon a new form of infrastructure, participating in a unpredictable type of spatial economy