2 December 2007

Bob Gordon Track

page 2

Pleasant as the track undoubtedly is, it will be even more attractive once summer has had a chance to dry out some of the boggy stretches - and I say "stretches" rather than "patches" advisedly.

Blechnum procerum, the small kiokio, is one of the more prevalent ground cover ferns along here.

We keep descending, winding and descending. After a while, I become somewhat alarmed at the amount of climbing I will have to do to get back to the car. However, I get off lightly, as it happens. The other end of the track is considerably lower.

Off to the right the leaves of mingimingi and raurekau provide a total contrast in style

And still gently downwards we go. Sometimes, an enclosed track can be a bit claustrophobic, but here that's not the case at all.

There's a largish patch of the round leaved lawyer, and for a change, not just the usual carpet of it but it's scrambled over a small shrub.

A brilliant green patch of a fern I don't know carpets an open piece of track to the left. I'm guessing one of the brakes, the "hard" ferns, (cf bracken, the best known of these) as it often grows in conditions where I might also expect to find bracken.) But I'm not sure.

We seem to have a valley opening out to the sea on one side.

A young punga sends out new fronds, the source of the koru pattern in Maori decorative work. "Fresh fern fronds." Possibilities there for a tongue twister...

Still gently descending.

and now a little more steeply.

There's a small creeper here with a serrated leaf. I have a feeling I should know it.

The bush is becoming much lusher, more intense, somehow, and just past here, the track definitely requires care.

Creeks are always a challenge of sorts for the less agile. Creek banks do not on the whole lend themselves to permanent access steps, and it's often a case of inventing a new way in and out.

The water is exceptionally clear, and Alice fills up while she has the opportunity. Waitak streams are not, by and large in the same league as South Island ones.