19 October 2007

Panto Track

page 2

There's been some wild weather recently, and this isn't the only track with windfall to deal with, but it's mostly no big deal today.

The karamu is lush and healthy - and in fact, that's the case with most of the vegetation along here. The odd shower has passed this way not too long before.

The canopy is now mostly very tall kanuka, with an occasional pine, and these will become an increasing feature of the local bush as we head in.

Muddy patches, however, dictate that we do not spend too much time stargazing.

Pine needles are getting thicker on the ground, and

the odd pine branch is starting to appear in the windfall. (Now and again, one of my record photographs hits the jackpot. I think this is just a lovely arrangement of shapes and colours.)

We're now pretty much past the weed alley section

The side of the track is a nursery of small plants and ferns.

A little further off to the side the pines are large.

I think this is a small Schefflera, with either a mapau or a pittosporum tenuifolium to the right

There's a healthy young rangiora with a leaf turned over showing the fierce white reverse side.

We carry on and in the occasional glimpse we get to either side, we are obviously climbing some. Windfall continues to be a feature, but not a problem.

Here and there, streams cross the track and pool for a bit, and this one was over our ankles when we stick-tested it.

Intermittent muddy patches continue. (Scale goes: swampy, boggy, muddy, slippery, greasy.)

Sometimes, on the best of tracks, one is seized by a mad impulse to dance. I suspect it has something to do with dry track under one's boots again.