20 September 2007

In the Steps of Jack Leigh

Chapter 3: Grey Lynn, Western Springs

page 7

Now here's a duck with a difference

Around about here we depart briefly from our brief. A cousin of Dan's lives just up the way and she and a number of neighbours have been upset by Council proposals to fell the pines on the hillside above the park.

There's quite an understorey of native vegetation and they're envisaging contractors flattening the entire hillside in the process of taking out the pines and creating an erosion problem as well as an eyesore. If the proposed "re-afforestation" is anything like the patch between Bullock Track and the main entrance gate, I can see their point.

We cross the stream, past more NO FISHING signs in English and Chinese, and head up the track through the pines and native bush towards West View Rd to take a look at what might be flattened.

You can see the extent of the understorey. It's varied, and more important, it's not the scabby-leaved sprawling ngaio we walked through earlier.

Well, there's one that's come down, and below is some mapau, again backgrounded by fallen trunks.

As we walk along the path up the hill, we can see some quite tall punga, but again, backgrounded by more fallen trunks.

This pine's obviously come down across the track and someone's been in with a chainsaw to open the track again.

Here's some karamu, again with fallen trees in the background. I'm beginning to get the force behind the decision to fell the pines. Would you be happy with your kids playing in here, especially, say, in high winds?

And again. In fact it's difficult to take a picture of anything that does not include fallen pines. What's more, it's only going to get worse as the trees age.

A chapter or so back I made a comment to the effect that following in Jack's footsteps was a useful way of staying fit in winter, even if it didn't allow me to photograph the first hangehange of the season. I was wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong.

Here it is.

There's several trees come down here.

We head back down the track. It might be a case of bringing in ARC for an opinion. They have an enormous amount of skill and experience available in such projects. And they're unlikely to whip in, fell, bulldoze and replace with nursery ngaio and flax such as has generated the el cheapo horror just off the Bullock Track.

But I'd say those pines are going to continue to fall one way or another and quite soon, and public safety on the track is not something that can be guaranteed, let alone the problems associated with a tree crashing over the zoo fence and freeing the elephants.

Speaking of elephants, maybe they could be employed in a bit of environmentally friendly log-hauling......

Here's a Coprosma grandifolia. On the whole, the bush here is not the greatest. It's essentially scrub growth, not so different from what we might expect on an undisturbed country road, and without much of real interest. A pine canopy is always going to limit that. And there's also asparagus fern and kahili ginger and onion weed here and there.

But it does probably represent a ten year start in establishing a new forest if it can be adequately preserved during the removal of the pines. And that should be bankable

On the end of one largish trunk, a delicate pale-brown fungus makes an attractive display beside the path

and as I said, some of the pungas are quite tall and well worth preserving if it can be done.

We make our way back across the bridge to the lakeside.