8 - 12 November 2007

From the Psychotic to the Sublime

The Lake Waikaremoana Track

Day 1, Page 3

We pick our way upwards

Some Blechnum flaccidum shares a beech trunk with a bunch of other ferns and lichens

and I'm now aware of a vapour of mist throughout the forest around me.

What I'm guessing is miro is also common along here, though the leaves look a little different from those I'm accustomed to up north.

I continue uphill.

Out to the right there are brief glimpses of the lake. It's still misty from up here.

For a brief spell, the roots disappear

but not for long ...

Crown fern (Blechnum discolor) is a dominant carpet species just along here, and for much of the track

A strident green lichen makes its home along here too, and especially in the gloom seems almost luminous.

Horopito, (Pseudowintera sp.) the New Zealand chilli pepper (no relation, but the chopped leaf lends a wonderful heat to stews) is common, even in the more extreme environment along the top of the bluff.

Here, a small native orchid (I think) emerges from a bed of filmy fern.

Moss is now growing strongly along the banks on each side of the path. Tree roots continue to assert themselves.

A young totara shines in the gloom. These appear here and there without much pattern, or any obvious nearby parent.

Looking at first glance a lot like a young rewarewa, a tawari emerges from a tree stump on whose bark it has taken root in a crevice

Another old favourite - Quintinia - joins us here, too while the mist seems to get even thicker.

Beech trees as they grow have a huge trunk base and root system relative to the size of their upper trunk. About 18 months or so back a major storm hit the area causing extended track closure as teams chainsawed their way through the debris and reinvented sections of track that had disappeared along with the root systems of nearby giant beech.