TRIP REPORT : Pakuratahi Forest: Climie Ridge – Goat Rock – Tane’s Track

Saturday 6 October 2007

Tataramoa.   Illustration by Eleanor Burton.

A poor forecast but a fine, breezy day eventuated for our 400 m climb followed by a traverse along the northern section of Climie Ridge.   Only metres from the carpark, we paused to note a roadside community of wetland species in a small, wet area with e.g. tataramoa / Rubus australis, tupari-maunga / Gahnia xanthocarpa; maire tawake / Syzygiun maire; hukihuki / Coprosma tenuicaulis, and kahikatea / Dacrycarpus dacrydioides.   Shortly, huge, old, emergent, northern rata trees garlanded with epiphytes were towering beside the track, and we were pleased to note their seedlings and saplings as we climbed through tall, podocarp / broadleaf forest.   Underfoot, snugly concealed in the moss Leucobryum candidum, the sessile leaves and minute, fimbriate-mouthed flowers of the orchid Singularybas oblongus rewarded close inspection through a lens.   For those of us clutching our copy of the recently-published Wild orchids of the lower North Island, another orchid species to be identified en route was Diplodium alobulum, a slender, greenhood species which used to be called Pterostylis alobula.   Further up, we were reminded that Hall’s totara / Podocarpus hallii has become Podocarpus cunninghamii, and by lunchtime, at the ridge crest, we had seen red, hard and silver beech.

Turning north, we passed a concrete plinth erected as a survey marker during construction of the Rimutaka Tunnel.   It now provides a useful measure of the age of the trees in the immediate vicinity, since the vegetation must have been felled at the time, for visibility.   En route, a discussion focussed on the difference between the botanical epithets “serrulate” and “undulate”, and on the “differences that make the difference” when one is comparing species, compared with the differences that are just part of the normal range of intra-specific variability.   Later, we saw one pole raukawa / Raukaua edgerleyi and admired a mahoe wao / Melicytus lanceolatus, with tiny, fragrant, wine-coloured flowers in dense clusters along the stems.   We also noted a single occurrence of peretao / Blechnun colensoi in what seemed a drier-than-usual site, ten species of filmy ferns, and Cyathea cunninghamii.   Returning via what is known locally as the “cycle track” and the old, railway alignment, we saw some fine specimens of tutukiwi / Pterostylis banksii in flower.

Tutukiwi.   Photo: Jeremy Rolfe.

Participants :   Bev Abbott, Barry Dent, Sue Freitag, Ian and Jill Goodwin, Bryan Halliday, Chris Hopkins, Chris Horne (co-leader), Pat McLean, Barbara Mitcalfe, (co-leader / scribe), Phil Parnell, Mick Parsons.