Le Bons Bay & Hinewai Reserve

After several days being cocooned at Okains Bay, I was leaving to climb back up to the Summit Rd, and do some exploring en route to Akaroa. The weather this last morning at Okains was a bit cooler, but you can never really tell what weather changes might be coming when you are nestled down low in the valley.

When I arrived up the top onto the Summit Rd, I found there was indeed quite a cool southerly raging, and I quickly had to add some more layers of clothing. But that wasn't going to stop me exploring.

My first deviation was down into Le Bons Bay, a very similar bay to Okains Bay, but there is no camping ground there. The geological history of the rocks seems to jump out at you as you walk onto the beach- and you can easily imagine past volcanic eruptions. As I headed back up the valley, I bought a bag from the village store, which was helping to raise funds for efforts to trap predators of the local white flippered penguins. Le Bons Bay School are actively involved as an EnviroSchool. A lot of the buildings in the bays in this part of Banks Peninsula seem to tell a story of the colonial past, so it was a surprise when I came upon a small, more recent Anglican church in the village.

 Further up the valley, I headed down a side road to see some art by a Dutch couple who have emigrated. Saskia van Voorn has made some exquisite prints of the local area using a woodblock printing technique.

 When I reached the Summit Rd again, I was back into the raging southerly. My friend had told me to go and visit Hinewai, a reserve funded by a Trust.

 The native bush is being allowed to regenerate in this reserve, by natural methods. Trees are being spread over what was farmland by birds dropping seeds.

 There is gorse in this area that is not being eradicated. It acts as a nursery for native seedlings, that eventually outstrip it, and the gorse dies off. 

 My Camino buddies might be interested to know there is a problem here also with tissues being dropped (though perhaps not of the toilet kind.) Maybe if gorse was grown like this along the Camino trails, it might dissuade the pilgs from dropping tissue waste indiscriminately...

 The view down into the nearby bay was beautiful, and you can see quite clear lines between the farmland and the regenerated bush areas. I finished my quick look at the reserve with a climb up Mikimiki Knob, where there were many species of divaricating plants, that were growing low down close to the rocks and substrate. Given the almost alpine conditions this day, it was easy to imagine such a growth form was an advantage against exposure to some strong coastal winds.

Turitea Explorer

Forest and Bird are running another wonderful series of summer bus trips, and today I joined their Turitea Explorer trip. This provided a rare opportunity to go inside the Turitea Reserve, where the city water reservoirs are, holding water from the Turitea Stream catchment. We were joined in the reserve by two PNCC men who work there, one an expert in the pest control that is leading to revitalisation of the bird life in the reserve, and the other who knew about the dam side of things.This first photo is from just above the lower water supply dam, where a smaller amount of water is stored ready to go to the treatment plant.

It was supposed to be raining, but we just had a few light bursts of spitting, and the reflections on the reservoir lakes were lovely in the millpond calm. (Meanwhile in Wellington and New Plymouth, terrible gales were blowing....)

This 'unremarkable' looking structure is actually the remnant of a weir that the very early citizens of Palmerston North used to help store their water supply.

We even had the opportunity to climb up the upper dam, and this is the view looking down to the stream below....

And this is the view from on top of the Upper Dam itself. You can see what lovely native forest is in the reserve.

This photo is from the bottom of the top dam, looking up to where all that water is stored...

We had several Turitea Road residents on our trip, and as quite a heavy shower coincided with lunchtime, one generously offered his residence as a lunch spot. A bit of a climb up the road was involved at first- this was an old training ground of mine.... We had beautiful views out from his property. Then we took a wander through his pine forest, which has been planted with the pines far enough apart that native forest can regenerate underneath, and the growth of native trees was quite remarkable. (Apparently a lot of the seed has been bird-borne from the nearby reserve.)

I loved the remarkable colours of this fungus that was growing on a fallen branch.

Next on the day's agenda was a walk along some of the Green Corridor that is being developed along the banks of the Turitea Stream. Again we had a knowledgeable participant from this endeavour to talk to us and explain what is going on. He knew exactly where we were going to see some eels...

And finally, we were lucky that he had gone to the trouble to prepare afternoon tea for us, which we all enjoyed beside the stream.

It was a lovely day's outing, and I thank all those in Forest and Bird who organised it.

Red Rocks, Wellington

For the second part of our bus trip we were heading to Red Rocks on the South Coast if it was fine (or Te Papa if it wasn't). Amazingly, in the midst of the all the **** weather we have had recently, the weather seemed to behave itself 'sort of' so we could explore the coast!

First up we had a talk from a Forest and Bird Marine person who had come down on her Saturday to a place she is passionate about: a marine reserve was created just over a year ago on part of this coastline, and she explained how it had come about and the rationale for it.

This coastline is quite wild- Cook Strait has a confluence of various currents, and the wind is able to whip through the gap between North and South Islands.
As someone who grew up near the coast (Waitara) and who now lives 'inland' in New Zealand terms, I was glad to have the chance to be near the sea.
And even more so I revelled, as there was a chance to see the waves doing some wild things in the wind!
The bus driver told us we were lucky it was a northerly. We might have got windblasted at times as the afternoon moved on, but he said if it was southerly we would also have been drenched and cold!
I didn't walk as far as where the seals were reported to be: in the time we had I preferred just to make it to Red Rocks and then to spend some time watching the wild waves!

There was a Visitor's Centre where there were displays explaining various aspects of the reserve, including how the rocks in just a small section came to be red, when most of the surrounding rocks were grey sedimentary greywacke. It seems that in the midst of the sedimentary layers under the sea millions of years ago, there was an extrusion of volcanic basalt. So some of the rock ended up having iron included in it, and some of this has oxidised to red...
I asked this Brit tourist to pose, so you could see some of the red rocks are quite large. She offered to take my photo, but I am certain you would rather see her!!!
So that was my Saturday: thanks to Forest and Bird for all the organisation that made this trip possible. I found both places fascinating, and will make my way back to the Karori Wildlife Centre before long for sure!

Karori Wildlife Sanctuary- Zealandia

I had to set the alarm on Saturday morning earlier than usual..... had to be in town by 7.20am for the Forest and Bird bus trip down to Wellington. First off in the morning we were visiting the Karori Wildlife Centre, then it was going to be a walk to Red Rocks and maybe some seal viewing. For photo purposes I am breaking the day into two posts....

I first heard about the Karori Wildlife Sanctuary two years ago when I was studying a paper in NZ fauna. A "mainland island" has been created, with an extensive anti-predator fence, so that some species that have disappeared from this area might be able to live here again. It is a dream that has 500 years of restoration ahead.....

Here is the piece of the fence that you see as you enter the sanctuary. The fence disappears up a hill and you lose sight of it in the distance: this sanctuary really is quite vast.

There is a low level sealed track that has been made accessible for pushchairs and wheelchairs. After you have walked a little way, you come to another area where they have fenced it off so they can keep weka out while they establish a population of tuatara and also lizards. Just past this fence I had a lovely conversation with Erin, who was working nearby. She told me two places where I might see tuatara if they had come out, but it seemed it was a bit windy for them today.

The sanctuary is also interesting for its historical role in Wellington. There was a display that recalled old goldmining efforts that I had been completely unaware of happening in Wellington. And you could walk along the dam.

A swing bridge linked to some other trails across the valley. This sanctuary has been conceived on a grand scale!

I didn't try to take many bird photos- time was a bit short for my experimental efforts- but I did take my dslr out for these shots. I know I missed the tip of the duck's beak, but I was excited to see how much feather detail I could capture.

And I will just leave you with this kaka perched on a feeding station....

Western Ruahines - Heritage Lodge

This summer, Forest & Bird have been running a series of walks to various parts of the region. Today the bus trip was taking us to Heritage Lodge in the Western Ruahines, run by the Deerstalkers Association. We were met at the carpark by a member who told us that there are not so many (exotic) deer by the river flats in this area these days. It seems that many of the deerstalkers are just as interested in preserving other wildlife, especially the endangered blue duck which is found in upper reaches of the river. The deerstalkers are heavily involved in a scheme in which trap lines are being laid to catch stoats and rats, in the hope that blue duck will be able to extend their range.

It was a gorgeous summer's day, sunny but not too hot. The first part of the walk was over farmland on which quite a lot of bush regeneration is happening, and we had beautiful views of the ranges in all their rugged beauty.

Here is one of the traps, a DOC approved design, that obviously caught something if you look at the tail. If you are horrified by trapping, I am sure you will get over that if you read a little about the impact these introduced animals, especially stoats, are having on our endemic birds.

There is a wonderful little humped bridge to cross once you reach the bush area.

We were warmly welcomed into Heritage Lodge and people ate their lunch there. Well, at least most people ate their lunch there: I had got my wires crossed and thought I was on a half day trip so had just brought a snack with me. Then we had the options of relaxing in the hut, taking a 'hard' walk down to the river and back up, or taking an 'easy' walk along the ridge line. I opted for the easy walk!

We arrived back in town at about 4:45. Fortunately for the others involved in my Sound of Music rehearsal, this did give me time to whizz home and have a shower first!!

For those who would like to know more about the Oroua valley stoat trapping project, there is a pdf file you can access part way down this DOC volunteers page, under the "Oroua Valley Stoat trapping project" heading. Actually, I found this whole page quite enlightening... I had no idea I could volunteer to do some of these things!!

Moana Roa beach

One of the things I realised doing the Camino was that a major 'love of my life' is walking outdoors ;-) And I have just joined Forest & Bird to do some more of that.

This morning I joined a group to walk at Moana Roa, down Parewanui Rd from Bulls. We walked in the sandy area just inland from the beach, until we reached the estuary where the Rangitikei River arrives at the sea. The great thing about going with F&B is that there are real experts who tend to go with you. Today our leader, Viv, was someone who had a lot of knowledge about coastal plants. She pointed out the native convolvulus (pictured).

She also knew a lot about where katipo live. She searched under a few likely looking small logs, and pointed out some nests to us. Then someone, using what we had just learned about their habitat, turned over another small log.... and hey presto, we were viewing a real live katipo, complete with a bold red stripe on its back! You can find out more in this local DOC report, and on the Te Papa website

And Viv also had a photo of a banded dotterel so we could look out for them. It wasn't long before we saw one.... though they blended in superbly with the stones and dunes. You can see a wonderful photo of one on this website.