October 9, 2023 Kauri Walk (Day 12)
We headed out to the forest today for a walk among the trees. The kauri tree is important in Maori mythology and we went to find some. We discovered that it’s not as easy we thought!
The entrance to the walkway to view kauri trees is very regulated! A disease is impacting the remnants of the kauri forest. We were instructed to brush and sanitize our shoes before entering the area!
We reached the observation deck to view the huge main tree after a short walk past tree-ferns and other large trees.
This is the mid-trunk, the whole tree wouldn’t fit in the camera frame!
We continued on another trail that called itself a ridge trail, but was constant up and down ridges, steep ridges! We gave up after about a half hour of thigh burning hikes up and down! Some unique sights were had though!
New Zealand is beset with introduced species that wreak havoc on native birds and plants!
I don’t know what would have caused this growth pattern except human intervention!
I called this a “weeping evergreen”, I have no idea what it is really labeled.
We drove the scenic route over the range into farmland and around back towards Opua and decided to try to finish the section of Coastal Walkway we got rained out of yesterday. We started down the walkway towards English Bay, got past the trailhead to the lookout, but then got distracted by a smaller trail heading up a creek to who knows where, so of course we went that way! We entered an enchanted forest! Filled with what looked like house plants gone wild! Huge ferns, trees, vines, a creek running through, a trail going up, down, around. Then small plaques with the names of the trees and plants, names like Rimu (red pine), Kiekie (“a scrambling climber related to pandanus”), Puriri (“of the verbena family, related to East Indian teak). None of which I recognized or could even tell which plants the plaques were referring to!
I think this is a Rimu, but I don’t know for sure!
One large root was labeled as belonging to a tree up on a ridge, the root traveled all the way down the creek to the bottom of the valley! We finally emerged up on a bluff above English Bay, we walked down along roads to English Bay and backtracked along the Coastal Walkway. We discovered that we had taken the trail through the Harrison Scenic Reserve, a trail set up by the local community as a trapline to trap invasive species to give the local birds, especially the kiwi, a chance to recover.
October 27th, 2023 at 6:02 pm
So you made it to English Bay!