TRIP REPORT : View Road South Headland Reserve; Te Raekaihau Foreshore Reserve

 Saturday :   9 April 2005

Te Raekaihau Point. Photo: Courtesy of Save the Point Incorporated.

Light drizzle soon gave way to a glorious, hot day.   Our meeting place was near “Princess Bay”, on the coastal platform raised by the 1855 earthquake.   We climbed a narrow track through coastal flax, past gnarled taupata, large mats of coastal mahoe / Melicytus crassifolius in fruit, spaniards / Aciphylla squarrosa, and Pimelea prostrata to a high point on Waitaha Ridge.   Here we had panoramic views to the Rimutaka Range, Baring Head, Wellington’s south coast headlands, and about 120 km away, the Kaikoura Range.

The vegetation at the south end of the peninsula, Te Raekaihau “the headland that eats the wind”, is short and windswept; in sheltered gullies, the canopy is up to 5 m.   Weeds thrive, including fennel, veld grass, old man’s beard, Darwin’s barberry, evergreen buckthorn, gorse, boxthorn, parsnip palm, boobialla, cape ivy, and karo, the latter seeming to inhibit the growth of an understorey.   WCC will be told about the extent of the infestation.   Pohuehue / wire vine / Muehlenbeckia complexa flourishes at many sites, often scrambling over the weeds.

At “Princess Bay”, on Conservation Site 2F, pingao and spinifex survive, despite trampling.   Further east, near Te Raekaihau Point, native plants are not protected by Conservation Site status.   We spent time trying to identify a rhizomatous grass, and hope that WCC will remove the marram nearby.

We listed about sixty native species, some definitely planted, and some self-sown but not naturally occurring in the Wellington or Cook Strait Ecological Districts.   View Road South Headland Reserve and the foreshore are a continuum from ridgeline to shore, a significant site on the south coast, and desperately in need of restoration and protection from the impacts of weeds, fire and motor vehicles.

Participants: Caitlin Arden, Simon Bequillard, Gavin Dench (co-leader), Dave Holey, Chris Horne (co-scribe), Margaret McKee, Barbara Mitcalfe, Leon Perrie, Mick Parsons, Sunita Singh (co-leader, co-scribe), Robyn Smith, Philippe Vidal.