25 May 2007

Quarry Track (Anawhata)

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This one begins part way along the McElwain Loop Track off the Anawhata Rd and continues as far as McKenzie Junction. It's in three sections, the first and the last comfortable going, gentle downhill for the most part, with the intermediate section plunging steeply and muddily downhill for some distance, and you will need good boots and sticks to compensate for any lack of native agility.

Fatman time incidentally was 62 minutes, allowing for photos and picking my ponderous way cautiously down the muddy bits. It's surprising what is available to the elderly and stout once we have established a little stamina. We can then take our own time, and with care handle most situations without becoming exhausted.

A young rimu emerges from the litter.

For much of this track we are skirting the edge of the valley near the top, and there are many fine views out across. It's a tramping sort of day, pretty overcast and there's a fine mist, but even so...

I'm not at all certain about this - I call it kiekie and use the same term for the epiphytes, but there is much for me to get my head around in this area. It's bloody big, at any rate.

amd despite the prdominant scrub along here, there are occasional big rimu and other trees.

Come on, then.

Maybe it's coincidence but more often than not when I see rimu bordering a track like this it's in somewhat scrubby open country with a bit of spare moisture. I love it. For me there's something a rimu like this adds visually to a walk that's difficult to define, but very much present.

and these, of course, are another ingredient of the track beautiful.

Technically this doesn't rate at all - it's out of focus and over-exposed, blah-di-blah - but there's nothing quite like getting your pics out of the camera at home and discovering something you didn't know was there at the time. This is the autumn flowering orange rata.

Stop blathering and get a move on...

Not when there's something like this to see. It's huge for a filmy fern, but looks very much like one of the hymenophyllums. That frond is all of 500mm in length

Here's a rata making an early start on a young kauri - surrounded by a host of seedlings and juveniles.