TRIP REPORT : Carey Gully, Owhiro Stream catchment

 Saturday, 1 November 2003 :   Carey Gully, Owhiro Stream catchment

In fine weather a staunch group of thirteen braved the nettles in this regenerating Wellington south ecosystem in a tributary gully of “Owhiro Stream”.   After descending steeply through low, mahoe - rangiora dominant scrub, later under a 10-metre canopy of mahoe we admired hundreds of Astelia fragrans and further down, a wet rock face with a thick pelt of Trichomanes endlicherianum.   Common Wellington ferns were abundant, and the less common “crinkly fern” Hymenophyllum flexuosum was not uncommon streamside.   Here Leon helped us sort out the characteristics of Asplenium gracillimum which distinguish it from A. bulbiferum.

After scroggin under a large porokaiwhiri at the forks, we began to climb the main stem through an area of devastation resulting from a large, recent slip.   In places the stream bed was completely buried under tonnes of soil, possibly the result of the sidling road above, bulldozed last year by Council.   Further upstream we added Cordyline banksii and looked for the “Hoheria Tararua” which we had found as a sapling 10 years ago.   That tree has gone but thankfully its progeny, a goat-browsed seedling and sapling are growing.   A small terrace later yielded sweetly scented Clematis forsteri, Botrychium biforme, Asplenium colensoi, Pterostylis banksii, Plantago raoulii.   Here Leon familiarised us with characteristics of the newly separated Polystichum neozelandicum and P. oculatum.

Climbing out via a steep spur in a gale northerly we saw Hymenophyllum minimum and Blechnum procerum.   Seedling kamahi bodes well for the future of this extensive ecosystem if it is allowed to continue to regenerate towards replacing its original forest cover.   We hope that after all, there will be no need to fill Carey Gully to the 260 m contour with Wellington’s “rubbish”.

So do your bit – reduce, re-use, recycle.

Participants: Barry Dent, Rewi Elliot, Sue Freitag, Bryan Halliday, Chris Horne (Co-leader), Chris Hopkins, Gary James, Gordon and Sheelagh Leary, Barbara Mitcalfe (Co-leader), Mick Parsons, Leon Perrie, Darea Sherratt.

Barbara Mitcalfe