TRIP REPORT : ‘Stuart Creek’, Ohau Valley, Tararua Range

  Saturday 4 December 2004 :   ‘Stuart Creek’, Ohau Valley, Tararua Range

A light drizzle soon cleared as we botanised upstream on a gentle gradient, past ferny banks draped with mosses and liverworts.   Abundant Blechnum colensoi attested to the year-round moistness of this catchment.   Both pukatea, Laurelia novae-zelandiae, and hutu, Ascarina lucida, were present, providing us with an ideal opportunity to distinguish one from the other: the shrub, hutu, is aromatic and has rounded stems, noded where the leaves emerge; the tree, pukatea, has tetragonous, grooved, purplish stems.   Occasional kahikatea, sapling rimu and Hall’s totara, and large miro represented the podocarps.   Moisture-loving kamahi, fuchsia, toro, pate and putaputaweta were abundant, and during our lunch break Ann Graeme spotted a terrestrial Raukaua edgerleyi.   In the shrub class, both horopito species were common, also Neomyrtus pedunculata and Alseuosmia pusilla.   Herbaceous plants noted were Nertera depressa and N. villosa, plentiful Jovellana repens and occasional Viola filicaulis.   When we emerged on the Waiopehu Track some of the party descended to the cars while five others continued up-track, finally descending to the Ohau River Track and back to the cars.

Sincere thanks to Bernie Salmon for providing tent sites at Waitarere on Friday and Saturday nights.

Participants :   Ted Abraham, Caitlin Arden, Barbara Clark, Rae Collins, Gavin Dench, Ann Graeme, Bryan Halliday, Dave Holey, Chris Horne, (leader in the field), Steve Hunt, Pat McLean, Barbara Mitcalfe (scribe), Bernie Salmon, Sunita Singh.

A report on the Sunday 5 December trip to Himatangi Scientific Reserve, Foxton will be published in the next newsletter.   Editor.