Time: 2 hours and 35 minutes
Distance: 6.7 km
Start: Wooded Gully Camping and Picnic Area, Harland Road, Okuku
Finish: Same place (it's a loop)
Date: Friday 3rd February 2023
With dust flying about like billy-oh, we zoomed down Harland Road to the Wooded Gully Camping and Picnic Area and parked by the river just opposite the entrance to the Red Pine Track. A high of 31 degrees forecast today, so it was a conscious decision to go for a walk under a canopy and most of the walks in the Mt. Thomas Conservation Area nicely tick that box.
We entered the beautiful beech forest straight away, relishing the experience of the green light. Apparently there is a Japanese term called "shinrin yoku" which translates to "forest bathing", where you sit quiet and calm amongst trees. Well we weren't exactly sitting or quiet...or even calm.... -in fact we were chatting nonstop - but I do think the reflection of chlorophyll is wonderful for one's wairua.
Zhanna, our resident mycologist, who has an eye for fungi, spotted mushrooms popping up all over the place on the damp forest floor and we pottered around taking photos and chatting about mushrooms: which ones you should eat and which ones you shouldn't; their pungent smell; quirky books we have read about mushrooms; having mushroomy friends. We sampled horopito/pepper tree leaves - which, when chewed, numbed the tongue and reminded me of Sichuan pepper. And we rescued a giant worm.
The first hour of the walk is up the valley on the Red Pine Track - a gentle, not too taxing gradient from which one can admire the fabulous ferns. We tried to remember their names, kiokio, rahurahu bracken, crown, silver. Eventually we intersected with the Wooded Gully Track which heads back down the hill for about 15 minutes until a left turn at ambiguous signage onto the Forest Track.
We crossed the bridge over the bubbling stream - with the clearest of waters. An unnamed tributary flowing into Garry River. I had my togs but yeah nah. One of the rocks down below the bridge looked like a massive hunk of pounamu/greenstone and we speculated on how it might have got there.
From the riverbed, there was a rather surprising and unexpected steep climb before the path eventually leveled out and entered a pine plantation. The scent of pine wafted about us. The trees were all planted in neat rows and towered loftily above us. We crossed a forestry road and marched on a bed of pine needles steeply down hill and back to the car park.
We drove in convoy back to State Highway 1 and the Office Cafe at the Old School Collective, where we embraced the heat and humidity, drinking hot and iced coffees and deliciously healthy echinacea smoothies before heading back to Crikers.
