7 July 2007

Ridge Rd Track

page 3

A young koromiko sits up in front of a small heketara. Koromiko is another that is scarcer along here than I would expect.

I do hope these are biodegradable. They pop up along most tracks, relics of the painted apple moth invasion a year or two back. I may be wrong but I doubt they are any longer active. Come on guys, one last round to take them all down.

Onwards

There's a small creeper around the base of this tree. Any help available to identify it would be welcome.

Young rimu also feature along this track - as well as being present as seedlings by the hundred.

Here is Rubus australis,

The vegetation is somewhat taller as we descend but the track is still very open.

Here, a couple of mahoe shoots emerge from a pile of fallen wood. I think these were the only ones I saw all day.

As we begin to level out a little, the water pools along the track. In fact, for some little way along here, you can look to either side of the track and see the sky reflected in standing water. The track is a causeway of sorts. Again, I'd like to know some of the history.

An intensely green moss is beginning to show along the track sides.

Does this qualify as a stream-crossing for my tenderfoot badge.

When I look at the map we haven't actually travelled very far at all. This is Browne's track

and only the ARC notice a few metres along gives any hint that it is not as innocent as it looks.

As it happens it is one of the few tracks in the ARC notes that is graded as a "route". This translates roughly as "Someone has been down here at least once and survived, but, as far as we are concerned, you are on your own, baby." The cautionary sign fronts several tracks I have successfully completed, and on its own is not a complete bar to the elderly and stout.

We'd better pick up the pace a little. At this rate we'll still be walking at sunset.

This is the lawyer I would identify as R. cissoides. Note the slightly more rounded leaf shape.

The track still requires a little care however.

Off to the side a little a shower of mangemange descends - well, ascends, actually. This is a good specimen, and there are lots of seedlings along the edge of the track, but it is by no means as common in adult form as in many other areas in the Waitaks.

A seedling maire