Bob Gordon Track

page 3

From the stream, the track heads sharply upwards.

It's hard to convey steepness in 2D pictures. A look at the profile will give you a better idea.

I love the low-growing kiokio that borders this path

Here's a bit of moss. Nothing like moss to invoke the fairy tale forests whose stories we grew up with.

You know, I haven't given a thought to anything mechanical or even moderately civilised, but I can never pass a chainsawed log in the bush without being jolted back to "reality, and thinking about the teams that keep these tracks open. Six months of neglect and a track is on its way to oblivion. There's just so much that we, as a tramping community, owe to this continuing care, this continuing vision of what is worth doing, and we should never take it for granted.

Up above, temporarily, the rewarewa canopy gives way to lancewood and kanuka.

Down below there's still a lot of kanuka, but the tall trees, and the ones whose dead leraves carpet the track, are for the most part rewarewa.

One day, perhaps, I'll find out why heketara is nearly always black-spotted as though from some kind of disease. A lush young mahoe grows up through it.

Here's a young specimen of Quintinia, a very distinctive green - and, sometimes, red - in the slightly scruffier areas of bush..

A young hangehange is also growing strongly.

This must be one of the most winding tracks I've walked in the Waitakeres.

After the initial steep bit, the track gentles out considerably and you'd hardly even know you're walking uphill at times.

It's pretty dry on the uphill leg, and there's a soft carpet of dead leaves that adds considerably to the pleasures of walking along here.

The occasional rimu hangs its dark blue green branches overhead.

This, as far as I know, is a pigeonwood but I would haveexpected some more in the way of flowers or green fruit than it offers. Maybe not what I think it is.