8-12 November 2007

From the Psychotic to the Sublime

The Lake Waikaremoana Track

Day 4, Page 2 Marauiti to Waiharuru

One of the nice things about Crown Fern is that now and again you get an almost perfectly symmetrical one, a real specimen.

The track surface at first glance looks like sawdust, but is in fact fallen beech leaves. A deepish carpet of this is probably one of the most comfortable walking surfaces I've been on, slightly springy but not so as to soak up too much energy.

We are starting to gain a little height.

and the lake below is quite a long way down.

A young wineberry conrasts it's own particular red-gold with the trackside moss.

We're heading down a section of track that has suffered dome from storm damage. There's a sedge of some kind in full flower.

I try a closer shot.

Looking back up the hill we've just come down, you can see the patching that has taken place. It's a long way from classic DoC track building but there's so much to be done it will have to do for now.

Across another small gully and up again, still not far from the edge of the lake.

and back out to the lake edge

Well, literally. The lake is about 2m below its usual surface level, so the water would be quite handy as we pass by just here.

We are defying all the averages when it comes to weather. Calm, sunny, peaceful... Be prepared for some variation on the incomplete picture presented here.

We continue along the edge of the lake through scrubby bush

One of the plants along here that's well worth stopping for a look at is the snowberry or Gaultheria. I came across these last year on the Mavoro Track, but as small alpine shrubs a foot or two at most. Along the lake they are up to a couple of metres, and right now just coming into flower.

Back up a little higher and the beech leaves take over again as track surface

Here's a marvellous example of a whekipunga, with its stoiut trunk and cloak of dead fronds hanging right to the base

We pass out into an open area again.

Another footbridge over another small gully. These are what make up much of the difference between "Great Walk" tramping and other tracks, and I have no problem with Days 3, 4 and 5, and perhaps much of Day 2 being described in this way.

On the St James, for example, on Day 1 we walked right to the bottom of every one of these little gullies and all of the way out again, and it's the last metre or so of a small gully or creek which is steepest and takes the biggest toll of leg muscles.

There seems to be some DoC policy which decides on what basis to supply handrails.

It's still a bit scruffy but we're starting to climb a little.

and it's beginning to turn into something a little grander than I've seen on this walk.