12 September 2007

Huia Ridge Track

page 3

I notice something personally quite interesting. Over a couple of years I had reached a tentative conclusion that mahoe and Alseuosmia occupied more or less the same niche in the bush, depending on some unknown variable as to which, i.e., you'd tend to see one or the other on a given track, but not both. This track is the exception. Both are growing profusely along the edge of the track.

We're now heading up a long and dilapidated fenceline. There's a yelp as Alice jumps through, leaving one of her dreads on a fence barb. I check for blood but find none. It's not just electric fences you need to be careful of, dear. Time I got the clippers onto her.

I am so busy telling Alice to be careful that I am completely surprised when something grabs me by the shoulders and swings me round. I have fallen into the clutches of a huge mass of bush lawyer suspended from a partially fallen tree trunk.

My manner, if not my person, remains detached and I capture the offending vine on my camera just as soon as I am clear and have removed my foot from the large and muddy hole I have staggered into in the process. It is indeed as vigorous and healthy a vine as I have seen.

We continue up the slope, somewhat more gentle now, but darkened by trellises of young rimu.

The track starts to dry out a little further on, which may be a function of the extra light now getting through.

Here's an interesting stump with both the small leaved varieties of rata sharing living space.

Blechnum fraseri, the miniature tree fern is quite vigorous along here, too, taller than usual but still to my eye looking slightly ridiculous pretending to be a punga, like a small child in high heels.

I think this is a piopio, a crown fern,Blechnum discolor, but I still wouldn't guarantee I can differentiate it from B. durum

We're still hard alongside the fenceline.

Here's a small miro. In the scruffiest and darkest and dankest bush this can still look shining and tidy.

What's that I can see up there?

Quite deliberately, I stop and look up. I am getting preposterously involved in placing each foot as I go, and mumblefucking about holes in the bush into which you pour energy - yachties will know what I'm talking about.

Time for a break, and it's a good one.

Hey. It's a nice day out there.

Down below it's back into the Amazon.

Yes, well.... No alligators or crocodiles or water snakes thank heaven.

By dint of hanging on to the fence and walking hard against it, I squeeze past.

God, that looks evil. This is not a part of the world that encourages the mystic to identify with all of creation.

We squelch onwards, and there's another steepish bit, not much, but care needed again.

We turn a sharpish right angle to the left, yes, that's what I thought, and fortunately my peripheral vision is functioning well enough to avoid the next hazard, which others before me have detoured around.

Suddenly, there's a small clearing in the middle of which is a polished boulder about a metre or so across which others before me have obviously made use of.

Alice checks it out for evidence of other dogs. You'd think with all of these trees around it'd be a lost cause or a simple waste of energy but she's really quite selective about what gets checked out.

I decide it's a bit early yet for a lunch stop, and head on. One of the effective differences between tracks like this and gravel-top Montanas is the need again and again to pick your feet up just a little bit more than usual, over and over and over again. Sure enough, today as I write, my quadriceps and toe extensors are in silent revolt.

Good practice though. I'd sooner get the muscles working properly before I've got another 12-15 km to do the next day, and the day after that, as I will come November.