A New Plant Discovery - Dracophyllum lessonianum

While walking around the Waiotoi Track on Saturday Melva found a plant we had not seen before near the track. After looking it up in our books we found it to be a Dracophyllum lessonianum. While there are Neinei (Dracophyllum latifolium) in the area it seems that this is a new find for the area. Interesting.

A Grand Day Out - Matata Wetland Boardwalk Opening - Saturday 28th June 2014

What a lovely day it has been. Somewhere between 30 and 50 friends and friends of friends arrived at our place this morning to celebrate the completion of the boardwalk. There were visitors from The Whangarei District Council, The New Zealand Ornithological Society, Forest and Bird, Local Land Care groups, Walking Access New Zealand, Local walking groups and friends. What a wonderful turnout.

The task today was to walk on a flagged track in the Hugh Crawford bush reserve and on the two kilometre Waiotoi Track. They are both delightful bush loop trails that start at our house.
To start the day Jim Gansell read a poem that Linda and Jim wrote for the occasion. It is perfect and very fitting for the occasion. At lunch time many came and picnicked on our deck. It was fun to meet everyone with lots of chatter about the nature around us on this special spot.

TRENDING ON TWITTER:  MATATA  BOARDWALK

(For Hilton and Melva on the occasion of the opening of their boardwalk
28th June 2014.)

The shy fern birds looked up to see
well dressed planks and two bare feet.

Towering above was Hilt,
haulin’ ‘n” huffin’,
cursin’ ‘n’ cussin’
over every inch he built.
By pulleys ‘n wedges,
 nails ‘n kedges.

Over months it took shape
set bees abuzzing, bird beaks agape.
What is He doing, why is He here?
He should be with Melva, He lives over there.

Now twitter has spread the word
and the natural kingdom has heard
of a Landmark thru wetland to wood
and a launch event in their neighbourhood.

Oh woe spluttered Ratty
-  it’s Melva or me
How can I get to this ceremony?
No don’t get rattled -
it can be  Melva and me...
‘Cos I have a split personality!

For the tweet went like this:
Old Mill Lane is the place to be -
Saturday June 28th, come and see!
Where we can watch humans and hear them talk
For they have built us an observation boardwalk.

By Linda Donaldson, Jim Gansell and matata June 2014

Today's special treats were the wonderful aroma of the Alseuosmia Banksii flowers that saturated the lower slopes of the Hugh Crawford bush, seeing Fernbirds, hearing Spotless Crake and finding a Gray Warblers nest (Last summers) and, of course, meeting and talking with everyone.
Thank you all.

This weekend

Its been a bit of a gray weekend but as usual, an exciting one at The Riverbank.

On Saturday just after our breakfast we saw a female Pheasant on our drive. Soon after it walked into the undergrowth and started feeding on coprosma berries.

Today we went around the Waiotoi Track armed with my bush knife and saw to clear any wind blown or overgrown vegetation on the track and we heard the little chirp call. It sounded like a Spotless Crake. When I played a recording from my phone a pair immediately responded. Fantastic. We have not seen or heard them here before. We did not see this pair but there was no mistaking the call.

Th Hugh Crawford DOC Reserve

Looking from the reserve back over our wetland

After recently completing the Matata Boardwalk across our wetland to the Hugh Crawford Reserve we have now flagged a loop trail that runs through the reserve and up through and past a good stand of Kauri then back to the boardwalk. It will take you about an hour. Much longer if you are inquisitive about all you find. In the first half of the trail there is an abundance of Alseuosmia Banksii, (Toropapa) that beautifully fragrant under story shrub.
We have also installed signs requesting visitors to spray their footwear (Or bare feet) to help prevent Kauri Die back. Thanks to the Northand Regional Council who supplied the signs, spray and brushes. Do please spray your shoes, or bare feet. There is no Kauri Die back here and we do not want to introduce it.

The end of the boardwalk, start of the trail

The Matata Boardwalk (Otherwise known as The Ngunguru Rail Trail, Banded that is.)

Melva & Bridget

At long last the boardwalk is finished except for a few small levelings. Today our friend Jakub helped out as we cut and hammered home the last planks. Now we can walk across our wetland all the way to the Hugh Crawford DOC Reserve.

The next plan is to mark out two tracks in the Reserve.

 

Summer Produce From Our Garden

Bananas

These Manzano are killing hot

Manzano Chilli

Elderberries

Our beautiful bananas

Ripe at last

This year our young peach trees did well. Small, but beautiful peaches. We mostly seem to have the Fruit Driller Caterpillar (Guava Moth) under control with our traps. The biggest pest at present is the Cicada. The seriously damage the young branches to lay their eggs. As a result the branches break when loaded with fruit. This summer they have been prolific with a lot of damage. 

Golden Queens ready for preserving

Chilli

Melva grows several kinds of chilli. We have two favourites. The one in the photo is sweeter and very mild. We use it instead of capsicum (Bell Pepper). The other is Manzano. Seriously hot and flavoursum. We have red and yellow Manzano. Loads of them. Fantastic!

Thank You Ladies

About 15Kg of smooth, runny gold.
Thank you ladies, all 60 odd thousand of you.

Honey at last

We celebrate with Whangarei Bee Club Mead

Honey Day

Yesterday Melva spun the first honey from her hives. She had nine full frames, each with about two kilos of honey. Hopefully that will get us through the year. They are still working hard but will need all that they can store away for the winter. Dear ladies.

As it turned out the frames had cooled too much and the honey would not spin out easily so only two frames were spun. We will have to place the remainder in a heated room for a while then spin them. Had we spun the frames immediately after taking them all would have been good. The hive is always 37 degrees C inside.
We live and learn. Looks good though.

Today, 23rd February Hilton spun the remaining frames. Currently we have a bucket of honey with a strainer on top all weighing 17 Kg. Tastes great too. Should get a few jars of liquid gold.

The Wetland Boardwalk Progresses

Only 20m to go to reach dry land onto thr Hugh Crawford Reserve. There is a bit of finishing and then OPEN DAY.
Currently I am looking for long beams suitable to support the deck on the remaining 20m.

The New Spindrift

At last the radio controlled 1/10 scale model of the new Spindrift is completed. There have been several very successful runs in the Ngunguru River and Tutukaka Harbour in calm and very rough conditions. Performs fantastically.
Here she is with her designer, Gary Underwood.

The Omahuta Kauri Sanctuary and Horeke

It is 143Km from The Riverbank to the Omahuta Kauri Forest Sanctuary. We took State Highway 1 to Mangamuka where we turned off west onto  gravel road up into the forest. The drive is very scenic with the bush getting more stunning with each kilometre traveled. The Reserve is clearly sign posted about 12 Km form the State Highway.

The walk through the Sanctuary follows a loop path past many large mature magestic kauri and some very large fallen logs that takes about about 30 minutes. It is easy to spend much longer here with these huge kauri. Hokianga, the largest is reportedly the sixth largest in New Zealand. It stands very tall, straight with a huge head. The Omahuta Kauri Sanctuary is home to the 'Ngapuhi Tree', ranked in the top 20 kauri trees of New Zealand.


Not only is there a spectacular Kauri stand, there is also many large rimu and a large variety of other mature natives. Truly a fine bush walk.

We took a detour on the way home and stopped at the Horeke Pub.
This is an absolute must for a touch of a little of New Zealands oldest history. i.e. The oldest pub (Serving beer since 1826) and Horeke being the second oldest town. There is quite a story. Follow the links and visit the village.

 

Strawberries From Our Garden

Ah! Summer!
Don't you just love strawberries!

First Tomtit Sighting at Ratty's Landing

At 7:30 this morning Melva spotted a Tomtit in the Kanuka beside our deck. We had a good extended sighting at between 2 ~ 3 metres. It was a juvenile male. Wonderful. This is a first for us at Ratty's Landing.
At the same time we watched a family of fantails being fed by the parents.

Bees

Checked our bees today. The little ladies are working hard. Should have honey this season. It already tastes good.

Picking Blackberries

At Last!! We have berries.  Last year we could only pick about a cup full. Our blackberries just did not fruit.

Melva grading berries for muffins, jelly and buckles

Between Sunday and this morning we picked about 12.5 litres of the beautiful dark fruit.
We have two wild varieties here. One with white blossoms fruits over Christmas.  The other (Mauve blossoms) starts fruiting at the end of January. So in a good year we have blackberries from about the 20th December to the end of February.
We fill the freezer. Melva makes jetty, jam, muffins, buckles and deserts. One of the best is blackberry and rhubarb crumble. We get enough to last the year from our patch. If it is a good year that is. It really is a bit warm in the north for blackberries. They grow well but fruit can dry on the canes due to the heat.

Summer - Wonderful Summer

The Pohutukawa is in flower so Summer is here

We have eaten our first stalk of bananas. The whole stalk fell off the tree in a wind while still unripe. We ripened them on the deck in the sun and they were every bit as good as expected. We still have four more at various stages of readiness. The newest is just a shoot at the top of the tree.

We had a lovely Sunday evening. Melva cooked some sausages, we grabbed a bottle of wine, picked up some hot potato chips from the Ngunguru Takeaway, drove down to the Ngunguru School car park where there is a beautiful sand spit / estuary view and had our dinner there. It really is a lovely peaceful spot and easy to do.

We also found a pair of stick insects in the Kanuka by our deck. There used to be a lot but since sparrows arrive we hardly ever see them now.