SUMMER CAMP TRIP REPORT : Aotea / Great Barrier Island

 Wednesday – Friday :   30 January – 8 February 2008

View from Orama.   Photo: Barbara Mitcalfe.

Day 1, Monday, 30/1/08 :   Arrival
We settled in at Orama Christian Camp, an ideal base, in a lovely setting.   The catered dinners, Bev Abbott’s catering for breakfasts and lunches, Rodney Lewington’s management of the accounts and plant lists, intriguing plant communities and scenery, and 43 keen participants, made this a trip to remember.   We thank Robyn Smith for suggesting places to botanise, Graeme Jane for plant lists, the staff at Orama, and the staff at Aotea Travel who drove us to and from our field trips.

Day 2, Tuesday, 31/1/08 :   Phoneline Track and The Old Lady Track.
A plant new to some, as we climbed Phoneline Track, was Lepidosperma laterale, sword sedge, aptly named for its laterally-flattened, sharp-tipped leaves.   On an outcrop of igneous rock we saw the succulent herb Peperomia urvilleana, and the strongly-aromatic Scandia rosifolia, both palatable species thriving in the absence of possums throughout the island.   Also of interest were the swarms of hybrid lawyer, Rubus australis × R. cissoides.   Further on, the party hotly debated the identity of a trackside fern, Blechnum fraseri, those to whom it was new, staunchly defending their doubts about it, on the basis that the sterile fronds did not differ enough from the fertile fronds, for it to be a blechnum.   (It was a useful debate – see Brownsey and Smith-Dodsworth 2000, p. 144).   Later, on Karaka Bay Rd, we were pleased to see many roadside plants of Rhabdothamnus solandri in flower.

The Old Lady (sic) Track provided us with a contrast between the Phoneline Track’s exposed spur with its scrubby vegetation and poor soil, and a moist gully under coastal forest, descending to Port Fitzroy, where we had luxuriant nikau, kohekohe and puriri and our first sighting of the NZ endemic, mairehau, Leionema (=Phebalium) nudum, with pleasantly aromatic leaves and reddish bark.
Barbara Mitcalfe and Chris Horne

Leionema nudum. Illustration: Eleanor Burton.

Day 3, Wednesday, 1/2/08 : Mt. Hirakimata
The highest peak on Aotea, maunga tapu of the Ngati Rehua iwi, Hirakimata rises to 621 m in the centre of the island.   At the start, in Windy Canyon, we were dwarfed by towering, vertical, andesite bluffs clothed with clinging rata.   From there, Palmers Track took across 2 km of mostly-indigenous scrubland, regenerating after early burning.   Up ahead we could see where the virgin forest began, and before long we were in it, enjoying the community of typically northern species, reminding us of how far we were from Wellington – kauri, taraire, toru, manoao, kawaka, tawari, Coprosma macrocarpa, C. dodonaeifolia, Alseuosmia quercifolia and a suite of dracophyllum species.   The climbing fern, mangemange, and Cordyline pumilio, dwarf cabbage tree, were new to many.   In places, we climbed timber stairways and boardwalks constructed to protect the nesting sites of taiko, black petrel, which breed on only Aotea and Hauturu, Little Barrier Island.   At the summit, after digesting the superb view and our lunches, we briefly botanised the vicinity, noting the rare Metrosideros parkinsonii, the bronze-leaved Pseudopanax discolor, Hebe macrocarpa var. latisepala, and to our surprise, Metrosideros umbellata, southern rata.
Barbara Mitcalfe and Chris Horne

Day 4, Thursday, 2/2/08.
Trip 1 :   Tramline Track.   Ten of us took this track, straight as a Roman road, regardless of terrain, up and down through gumland, scrub, swamp edge and bush.   Of note were horrible hakeas, flagelliformis-like Baumea tenax at 3m, a Cordyline pumilio that towered over Barry, an 8m Halocarpus kirkii with no appressed leaves, an epiphytic kanuka, a Brachyglottis repanda leaf decidedly exceeding A4.   This later provoked Chris to search his musical memory aloud, in snippets, for several km – something from Gilbert and Sullivan about an actor’s aspirations for the role of ‘the elephant’s bottom’.   Then we admired an elephantine boy weta with ‘nice legs’.

Owana Falls were a straight drop onto sculpted rocks; very pretty.   And later at the inviting Kaitoke hot springs, we met other BotSoc groups.   A good day.
Sheelagh and Cliff
Trip 2 :   Kaitoke Hot Springs.

Sticherus fl abellatus. Photo: Barbara Mitcalfe.

Day 5, Friday, 3/2/08.
Trip 1 :   Whangapoua Estuary.
Trip 2 :   Burrill Route.   This was an eight-hour trip in the Te Paparahi Block, at the north end of the island, from Mabey Rd, Whangapoua Estuary, to Tataweka Trig, 628m, so we botanised on the move.   The “route”, a track bulldozed in the early 1970s by copper prospectors, began in kanuka forest, then climbed to unburnt, mature, cutover forest, where we saw the highlight of the day, a very large totara, plus big puriri and taraire.   After about 1km from the start, the parent rock is greywacke, one of two occurrences on Aotea.

About halfway to the summit, we re-entered burnt kanuka forest which had been farmed.   This area is being damaged by wild cattle.   Pig rooting is common along the entire route.   We had lunch at Tataweka trig, enjoyed the views, and removed clothing and equipment abandoned in the area.   We found several Raukaua edgerleyi, and understorey species indicative of a wetter climate than elsewhere on the island; e.g. water fern, filmy ferns.
Owen and Shelley

Day 6, Saturday, 4/2/08 :   Coopers Castle Track.

Coopers Castle is a three-hour walk along a ridge from the saddle, where Aotea and Karaka Bay roads meet.   .After a twenty-minute walk through regenerating scrub, with manuka and kanuka forming the canopy, we entered mature forest with fine, spreading, specimens of taraire and puriri.   As always in northern forests, nikau was common.   Here we first saw the ferns Asplenium lamprophyllum, rock fern / Cheilanthes sieberi ssp. sieberi, and soft tree fern / Cyathea smithii.   In the absence of browsing animals, wharanui / Peperomia urvilleana occurred well inland from the coast, as a low epiphyte on tree trunks and rock faces, and Brachyglottis kirkii (var. angustior ?) was a common shrub in the understorey.   At higher elevations, needle-leaved neinei / Dracophyllum latifolium, with its elbowed branches, gave the forest a prehistoric touch.   Coopers Castle tested our resistance to vertigo, with an enormous sheer face down to the bush below.   It also gave us a great view of Whangapoua Beach and swamp, areas that we had botanised on 6 February.   We were concerned by the amount of fresh pig-rooting we saw, and the damage that these animals must cause to the island’s flora and fauna.
Chris Hopkins

Day 7, Sunday, 5/2/08.
Trip 1 :   Starting from the Tramline Track not far from Whangaparapara, we climbed Witheys Track, the route of an old stream hauler, descended into Wairahi Stream, followed the stream up to the Pack Track which took us back over the ridge to the Tramline Track.   The warning in the track brochure about allowing extra time for photos led me to anticipate coastal views, but they didn’t eventuate.   It was views of the stream that first excited our photographers.   The highlights of the trip, however, were the regenerating kauri near the top of the Pack Track.   These were trees, not saplings; dense stands, not isolated individuals; and each trunk was a new visual delight.   This is a site to treasure and visit again.
Bev Abbott
Trip 2 :   Whangaparapara Trig.
Trip 3 :   Mangati Bay.

Awana Estuary.   Photo: Shelley Heiss-Dunlop.

Day 8, Monday, 6/2/08.
Trip 1 :   Harataonga Walkway.
This long, coastal trip, from Harataonga to near Okiwi, featured great views, pa sites, Aotea’s other greywacke area, manuka / kanuka shrublands, and some fine, regenerating, coastal forest.
Chris Horne
Trip 2 :   Awana Estuary.

Day 9, Tuesday, 7/2/08 :   Kaiaraara Track.
This well-formed, easy track is ideal for gaining an appreciation of the regenerating vegetation, typical of Aotea, being quite rich in species.   It follows Forest Road, near Port Fitzroy, under a mature kanuka canopy, with regenerating kauri.   The track then follows an attractive stream, with large boulders.

Along Forest Road we saw a large patch of Deparia petersenii, Lastreopsis microsora, Macherina sinclarii, and large-leaved Melicytus and Macropiper species.   A huge northern rata towered above the kanuka canopy.   Exotic wattle and pine species are degrading the ecosystem.

Along the Kaiaraara Track, notable species include Sticherus cunninghamii and S. flabellatus, a small patch of Loxsoma cunninghamii, a Rumohra adiantiformis on ponga, and some large Lastreopsis hispida.   Tutu is surprisingly abundant along the stream banks, but we saw only one mature tree fuchsia.

We heard, or saw, long-tailed cuckoo, silvereye, tui, kereru, greywarbler, fantail, kaka, kingfisher, but usually only single individuals.

A feature of the Kaiaraara Valley is the kauri dam, built in 1926, by George Murray of Kauri Timber Company.   It is 14m high and 14m wide.
Jo and Shelley

Kauri Dam, Kaiaraara Valley.   Neill Simpson on stream bank below the dam.   Photo: Chris Horne.

Day 10, Wednesday, 8/2/08 :   Departure.
Homeward bound by ferry or aircraft.

Snail collections from Great Barrier Island.   I collected nine samples of leaf litter from various spots on our field trips, and delivered them, sieved, bagged, and labelled, to Phil Parkinson.   He identified about thirty species, and noted several other minute species that are not yet identified.   Phil is a volunteer at Te Papa, working for Bruce Marshall, who co-ordinates the snails collection.   Two of the more productive samples were those taken on the first day, and on the last day.   The first was from the track between Orama and Nimaru Bay, and had twenty-nine snails of seven species.   The other was from just below Cooper’s Castle and contained eight species.   The most interesting sample was from the top of Tataweka, 628m, with sixty-three specimens, of eight species, several of which were unfamiliar, or uncommon.   One snail of special interest to BotSoccers who remember Pauline Mayhill, was in the sample collected at Kaitoke hot springs.   It is an undescribed Flammocharopa which has been informally named “ F mayhillorum”.
Jill Goodwin.

Participants :   Bev Abbott, Jonathan Anderson, Joanne Beresford, Barbara Clark, Rae Collins, Barry Dent, Gavin Dench, Raewyn Empson, Jo Fillery, Sue Freitag, Ian & Jill Goodwin, Bryan & Robyn Halliday, Clare Hart, Shelley Heiss-Dunlop, Margaret & Richard Herbert, Chris Hopkins, Chris Horne, Sheena & Stuart Hudson, Brenda Johnston, Allison Knight, Sheelagh Leary, Rodney Lewington, Cliff Mason, Johanne McComish, Lorna McCullagh, Belinda McLean, Barbara Mitcalfe, Syd Moore, Les Moran, Donella Moss, Deborah Olson, Darea Sherratt, Barbara & Neill Simpson, Sunita Singh, Val Smith, Owen Spearpoint, Julia Stace, Yvonne Weeber.