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Home Track (Partial)

Winstone Track to Marguerite Track

1 February 2007

This was part of a loop walk from Glen Esk Rd along Home Track, Marguerite Track, Lucy Cranwell, Kauri Grove, Connect and Kitekite and back to Glen Esk Rd.

We're still climbing, but at nowhere near the rate of the first part of the track. The highest point is the junction with the Centennial Track.

Fatman time for this section a minute or two over the hour.

I reached the junction with Winstone Track in good nick. This is my third trip up here inside a few weeks so it's starting to feel like familiar ground. Instead of stopping here, though, we have another hour's walk ahead of us. For the first part of the trip, up to Centennial Track Junction, the track is relatively easy going.

After the fairly solid uphill of the last section this part is a little more varied and perhaps a touch scruffier.

A young rimu offers a sudden change of colour, quite intense.

It's pleasant, somewhat lightweight walking.

Here's quite a wonderful example of Panako (Blechnum filiforme) or Thread Fern. You can see the ground fronds below, looking quite different altogether from the lush climbing fronds.

And here's a plant that I realise I have been walking past without acknowledging for several weeks and several tracks, now, all because it's flowering season is past. Alseuosmia macrophylla, the northern karapapa. When in flower it can scent a path for several metres either side in still air, possibly one of the most attractive fragrances in the New Zealand bush.

The track is beginning to deteriorate somewhat. Last Monday's overnight downpour has found small depressions here and there and settled in for a bit.

Dan moves in for a closeup of some fungi

The track has begun to narrow a little and become somewhat rutted.

and continues to narrow as we move around the side of a ridge

and then it eases off again. Notice the pattern of rata on the trunk to the left.

The Centennial Track branches off cross country to the left.

That's one I'm saving until I'm a bit fitter - perhaps after I get back from the South Island.

From here to Marguerite Track, we continue along a narrow and muddy path.

I don't usually bother with introduced weeds, but in this case I'll make an exception. Centaury is an extremely bitter herb, as Dan is shortly able to confirm. An old Geordie friend of mine recalls as a child being sent up by his grandmother into the hill pastures to gather it for use as a liver cleanser.

We pick our way along. I realise I am hanging out for lunch, so I swallow some water and grab a piece of biltong to keep the pangs at bay.

Not far now. And the track begins to relax a little too.

I pass a young kohekohe. There are a number of them about but I've not yet seen a parent tree.

The track is still pleasant, if somewhat enclosed.

and here we are. I drop my pack and break out the thermos and a largish chunk of fruitcake.