Supplejack Samba

It's a shame I don't have my camera when I'm hunting for Darwin's barberry as there's some magnificent forest that we travel through: carpets of filmy ferns, canopy-piercing rimu, a range of fungi, rotten trees and curious ngirungiru (tomtits) that check out what we are doing. I wonder what they make of the Weed Team in fluoro coats and safety glasses, struggling through supplejack and bush lawyer. I'll pop in a few photos taken on previous visits to the island - hope I've identified them correctly - please let me know if I haven't.

Putaputaweta - Carpodetus serratus

The terrain has changed markedly in the three weeks I've been working: the first week we were in old farmland that is reverting to scrub so lots of gorse, hydrangeas gone mad, scrub and weeds. We'd come across large patches of wall-to-wall barberry and spend the next hour or so cutting and pulling.

Week two had more established forest, steeper terrain and swamp - but also less barberry. We ran long navigation lines up the length of the narrow properties and made good progress. Ha, I thought, hard work but it's all downhill from now on. Yeah right!!

Pate - Schefflera digitata

We started Week Three in bush with lots of barberry and gorse, then Alex found a 'huge' barberry tree (ie greater than 150mm in diameter at chest height). We took it in turns to cut through the main trunk with our Silkie saws (fold-up bow saw) but was unable to pull it down as it was well held up in the canopy. At a guess it was 4-5m tall and probably over 40 years old - I wonder if it was one of the original plants brought on to the island. It was raining on Wednesday and we got wet feet walking up through the swamp to start our line. We then ran into challenging terrain; supplejack, bush lawyer, windfalls and bog. It was made worse by being wet and not moving fast enough to warm up. We called a 'Wet Day' and finished early at 2pm and Ed dropped me home in the ute - sheer luxury!! I spent the rest of the afternoon in front of the fire and washing/drying my gear.

Refreshed after a good sleep we spent Thursday morning at the Native Nursery, had lunch back at the office and went out barberry hunting in the afternoon. Well, that was the plan, but the supplejack decided we weren't going anywhere in a hurry. At one time I was 'swimming' in a vine hammock - couldn't go forward or back and with increasing anxiety about how I could escape!! On Friday we decided to try the residential sections along Horseshoe Bay Road but the supplejack trumped us and was even more dense in places. I had survived the week but was definitely feeling my age!

? Lichen

It was with trepidation that I started the fourth week today; luckily the gods took pity on me - it didn't rain and it was lovely bush with the odd patch of supplejack but nothing like last week. The team covered a lot of territory and we found a few barberry plants along the way. Long may it last!!

Paterson Inlet at dusk