TRIP REPORT : Eastern Hutt Hills

 Saturday 5 April 2003 :   Eastern Hutt Hills

We gathered on Sierra Way, off Blue Mountains Road, Upper Hutt, to be welcomed by Sheelagh and Gordon Leary, and Patricia Tankersley, to their forest-clad properties.   We used a comprehensive plant list prepared by them, Pat Enright, Peter Beveridge and Olaf John

We spent the morning botanising down the 1.6-km drive to the Leary’s home, seeing regenerating shrublands, hard and black beech forest, and broadleaf forest with podocarps and northern rata.   The drive was built for logging 40 years ago – fortunately the operation was not particularly destructive, so the forest is impressive.   The banks of the drive featured numerous species of fern, and a Coprosma microcarpa which was the object of discussion.

After “elevenses” at the Leary’s, including freshly-baked, tasty biscuits, we walked a series of tracks, including a visit to a big rimu, to reach Patricia’s deck for lunch.   Behind the house we admired a pokaka with intermediate foliage, on the spur up to the drive saw the biggest black beech most of us had ever seen, and nearby saw a small-leaved milk tree / Streblus heterophyllus.

We thank Sheelagh, Gordon and Patricia for permission to visit their properties, and for their hospitality.

Participants: Flora Christeller, Barbara Clark, Gavin Dench, Jenny Dolton, Helen Druce, Dave Holey, Chris Horne, Gordon Leary, Sheelagh Leary, Cath Mathews, Barbara Mitcalfe, Donella Moss, Sunita Singh, Patricia Tankersley.

Chris Horne