22 July 2007

Upper Huia Dam Track
(Partial)

page 3

There's a few larger trees, but mostly smaller than this one. The bush at the left drops away steeply. I can hear the stream off to the side. It's quite noisy.

As we get further down the filmy ferns become more and more of a feature. I can't separate the members of this genus easily, though there's a family likeness which is unmistakeable. Some of the fronds on these filmy ferns are around 400mm.

A scraggly yellowish young kohekohe appears and there are more like it as we continue. They look quite different from the shorter, more vigorous and darker green youngsters in the Woodhill Forest reserve.

Blechnum fraseri shines in largish patches along the way.

The track falls away even more steeply and the stream noise increases.

The particular shade of olive green here convinces me this is a filmy fern, but one of the biggest fronds I've encountered.

Someone's had a go at this one with an axe.

Creek Fern covers the banks along here

I pick my way past carefully over subsiding ground. The axe could well have fallen a little further back.

More bog.

A small patch of relatively straightforward walking.

Young tawa make their appearance in a graceful fall of lime-yellow leaves above us.

A pale lemon mushroom narrowly avoids being squashed as I pass.

A small Schefflera (??) is bright against a background of punga litter.

and I rather enjoy the sight of a mangemange making its way up towards the light by hitching a ride on another climber, the supplejack.

Here and there on the ground are small broken branchlets of pigeonwood. I can't discover why they are broken off. The berries seem still too green to be attracting the attention of any birds, though it's perfectly possible that a kereru alighting on such a branch might snap it.