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Roundwoods to RimuSomewhere in the Buller Office of DOC there is or has been a policy writer who is obsessive to the point of lunacy about recycling cut tree branches and roundwood to repair or construct tracks. The feedback is right here for him to see. When they can, trampers avoid them like the plague. They walk round them rather than over them if there is room to do so. They are a menace - they are round and slippery and they demand all of your attention to negotiate without falling. Get rid of them. I reckon it's the Buller office because they don't figure on the Tasman side.
Follow a brickbat with a bouquet: the small and simple bridges constructed out of 8 x 2 tanalised pine over just about every little streamlet are probably the biggest factor in taking the stress out of the track. When I think how many small and sometimes deep gullies I did not have to negotiate because these bridgelets were in place, I count my blessings yet again. Coats off or cook.
Sometimes the gravel on the path can get quite coarse, and a stick is ideal for retaining balance rather than throwing the load onto one's ankles and knees. I am enjoying the fact that my stick is the same one I used through ten years of arthritis while I was waiting for hip replacement operations.
The side of the track still has much to offer. There is a temptation to let the tunnel opening in front drag you forwards at a fixed rate, especially when gravity is assisting.
The small plant is a quintinia, if I have the spelling correctly, a tree I haven't seen in the north, but which is a major feature down here. Here is a larger version.
Speaking of tunnels, I damned near shit myself when a wood pigeon rockets past my ear. In the luxuriant bush they tend to use the track tunnel as a kind of motorway. Noisy bloody bastards. We are descending quite rapidly and the bush is changing just as rapidly.
The first rimu for some days also tells us we are returning to lowland forest. Once again I am among familiar species.
There is still a wealth of fern and moss on the side of the track.
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