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| [Note Guidelines] Photographer's Note |
Here is another photo taken at red rocks (see photo "my childhood play ground" for more info) this is the only place you can find red rock on this coastline .It runs in a line from the sea to the hill .Walking around to Red Rocks Beyond Owhiro Bay,is Spooky Gully it contains colonies of tauhinu, coprosma propinqua, the large-leafed pohuehue which grows among scree on cliff faces, and speargrass. Speargrass is one of five nationally threatened plant species along the south coast, and the exclusive diet of two rare weevils. This intriguing mix of invertebrates and coastal cliff plants is similar to South Island subalpine communities. Skinks, geckos and a rare native North Island cicada also inhabit the area.Around from Spooky Gully you can find native taupata, tussock and flax on the 40-metre high island of Taputeranga, along with karo, pohutawaka, lupins and boneseed introduced when goats were removed and attempts made to replant during the 1940s. The island features a large area of herbs tolerant to sea salt, comprising mostly glasswort but also two rare native plants including the only Suadae Novae-Zelandiae known in the Wellington region.
Prior to clearance, sheltered hillsides above 350 metres were covered with dense broadleafed rain forest of tawa, rimu and the crimsonflowering northern rata [a member of the largely tropical myrtle family]. Rotting limbs remain from coniferous rimu which grew 20 to 35m tall with a trunk diameter of 1.5m, and rata up to 25m high and a trunk up to 2.5m diameter. Most of the forest had been cleared by 1900 with much of the pasture farmed for town milk supplies. South from the old quarry area at Te Kopahou Stream are larger areas of regenerating native forest including mature tree hebe and kaikomako. The higher ridges of the catchment toward Hawkins Hill [1625m] include speargrass, tussock and inaka. The adjoining Careys Gully contains the most advanced regeneration with tauhini and gorse succeeded by manuka, kanuka, and broadleafs including mahoe, five finger, akiraho, coprosma and hebe. The gullies contain numerous tree ferns.Nearing Red Rocks at the Te Kopahou stream [and further south at Long Gully] are stands of karaka indicating former Maori settlement. Other Maori occupation recorded in 1916 included two villages between Taputeranga and Owhiro Bay, three pa sites within Owhiro Bay, the village of Pariwhero at Red Rocks, and two more pa sites at Te Rimurapa where each year hundreds of fur seals return for winter but some may stay all year. |
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