Kitekite and Byers Tracks

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We're now back on the perambulator friendly track for a few hundred metres until we reach the bridge across to the Byers Walk.

The Cave Creek tragedy some years back saw a massive shift towards caution in DOC and other outdoor building codes.

Byers Walk is a flat sandy path through regenerating bush dominated by young nikau, ferns and a sprinkling of older trees. My memory is being tugged by something and finally I get it - the last day of the Heaphy, though not on such a scale.

Despite the sandy soil, there are a host of small ferns along the path. There is obviously enough local rain and friendly canopy to sustain them, compared with Woodhill where, especially close to the coast, only one or two hardy species thrive beneath the pines.

A punga stump is host to a small colony of Microsorum scolopendria, the newly-named Fragrant Fern or Mokimoki, which provides a fine example of the undivided juvenile foliage and just a few mature fronds.

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood....

There are two ways to finish the last hundred metres or so of the Byers Walk and we head left. Both will drop us at a large grass picnic area. Along the way we pass an enormous spiralling rata with a special plaque of its own.

The grandfather trees along here include some fine puriri, and even when they've finally crashed to the ground, they preserve enough root system to support new shoots rising from their horizontal trunk

Pungas, too are a prominent part of the canopy and their litter on the ground helps to nourish other smaller ferns as well as provide ongoing decoration for Alice.

This is one of my very favourite mosses, Selaginella kraussiana. It's not a native, it's an introduced fellow from southern and central Africa, but it carpets large areas of the more friendly eastern slopes of the Woodhill nature reserve.

It'll still mostly give you a wet bum if you sit on it, but few mossy banks look more inviting to just sprawl across and take a rest.

That little thought is a signal. I grab a swig of water and we start looking for somewhere to stop for a cuppa. At this stage we are unaware of the large picnic area just up ahead and we settle for another fallen puriri, it's trunk worn smooth, which looks as if it has hosted many others before us.

There are few picnic treats to beat thermos tea and fruitcake when you've earned them, though weight considerations exclude them from a big tramp. These do not apply today and we finish off the last crumbs, repack and continue.

Alice thinks she might be ready for a swim.