2 April 2008

Chateau Mosquito Track

page 2

The time estimates on the signs right at the start are grossly inaccurate. One says Smythe's Corner is an hour away, and the other says that Simla is an hour and a half away.

The ARC map notes themselves allow an hour to the end of Chateau Mosquito and a further 45 minutes for Sisam to take us up to just short of Smythe corner. Fatman time to the end of Chateau Mosquito is about 1hr 45m, and 2 hr for the return leg. I'd probably bank on about 3 hrs or a bit more for me to get as far as Smythe's Corner. One day when I have lots of spare time and energy I'll give it a go.

There are people (New Zealand Tramper website) who think nothing of an 18km hike through this country in 4-5 hrs, and frankly I don't think much of the idea myself.

A shrubby koromiko just inside the track is in green seed. I nibble a meditative tip from one of the leaf shoots. A bit like John A Lee's advice to public speakers: Never pass by a toilet without using it. On the rare occasions I have been taken short in the bush, even prepared with toilet roll in the pack, the whole procedure has been obnoxious and a prophylactic koromiko leaf or two seems to remove the urgency from the situation.

These are always a reassuring sight. Somebody at some time has taken the track in hand properly.

Up ahead, the track looks benign and welcoming.

Even smokers can manage a track like this.

We head on up to the top of the first gentle rise where a track heads off to the right towards a vehicle entrance on Anawhata Rd.

It's pleasant but light bush surroundings. No trees of any size.

Parts of the track are open enough to warrant a grassy covering

The predominant variety of bush lawyer along here is Rubus australis, the little round-leaved carpeting variety

and here a mangemange shins its way up a slender trunk.

The mapau is less reddy-bronze than usual and the leaves seem tougher.

Within a metre or two are mingimingi and houhere. As we get into the drier areas we shall see the needle-leaf mingimingi take over.

The track continues, wide and generous.

Selaginella carpets either side of the track in many places. If all weeds were this attractive......

A very small tanekaha is just starting out. As we head for the drier areas of the track, these will also become more common.

Hullo. I've picked up a few of these from my lawn off the neighbours cabbage tree, and sure enough, just above is a beauty

and I've just been saying to myself, not much in the way of rangiora, when one pops up. They too are more common in drier areas. One of the regular questions I'm asking myself as I walk is what species I am not seeing, and why that might be.

Here we are at the RGB track junction, named for Ron Bennett who first cut the track.

On a mountain biking forum I notice that someone is at pains to point out this does NOT stand for Real Good Bike Track, and the NSTC refer to it as the Ruddy Gut Buster. I'll save it for another day.

Given the under-estimation of time at the earlier sign, this is just as far out the other way. It says half an hour to the van from here and on the return trip and tired I do it in well under twenty minutes.