SERN Spring Field Trip - Te Anau area
This year’s SERN Spring Field Trip will be a two day visit to the Te Anau area, with other stops on the way there and back. We will be visiting some new sites, as well as returning to others which some will have visited before, to see how they have developed over the longer term. Most sites are riparian, some just getting started, others well established. A few have QEII covenants: an opportunity to find out more about the value and process of covenanting. It will also be a self-drive weekend (although carpooling will be organised as required - see below ). The programme is as follows:
Saturday 15th November
10.30am: Dunrobin Tussock QEII Covenant (2450 Wreys Bush-Mossburn Rd). QEII Rep Jesse Bythell and botanist Brian Rance will talk to us about some rare species present here and explain the special restoration techniques being used to try and ensure their survival.
12.00pm: Lunch at Mossburn (BYO)
1.30pm: Marwick’s QEII Restoration Covenant (625 Kakapo Rd, Te Anau). QEII Rep Mark Sutton will be present to explain a different type of QEII covenant here, where Simon and Sue Marwick have planted thousands of native plants to restore a gully system.
4.30pm: Te Kōawa Tūroa o Takitimu (3023 Blackmount-Redcliff Rd, Jericho). Te Waiau Mahika Kai Trust Programme Manager, Vanessa Horwell, will tell us about the restoration project being undertaken here by the Trust to restore mahinga kai (Ngāi Tahu traditional food and resources). We will do a short walk around to look at the site and at some of the work being done. (Overnight stay is possible: see below.)
Later in the evening, following a shared potluck Dinner, there will be a chance to listen out for bats.
Sunday 16th November
9.30am: Cathedral Peaks Home Creek Riparian Restoration Project (268 Hillside-Manapouri Rd). Landowners, Cameron and Wendy MacDonald, and project organisers, Environment Southland, will explain the community restoration work being undertaken alongside this stream which originates from the Kepler Mire.
10.30am: Waiau Trust’s Home Creek Restoration Project (170 Hillside-Manapouri Rd). Following early work led by Edith Jones, further restoration plantings have been undertaken by the Waiau Habitat Trust with support from the Motorhome Association. Check out the original creek plantings and hear about the future plans.
12.30pm: Lunch at Mossburn (BYO)
1.45pm: Rural Women’s Castledown Wetlands (928 Dipton-Mossburn Rd). Last visited in 2018 by SERN, in the last few years they have begun willow control. Hear about these plans from Ann Irving, and also about the group’s ongoing planting and pest control at this site on the Dipton River.
Please email Gay at [Enable JavaScript to view protected content] with expressions of interest for this field trip, especially in the night’s stay at Te Kōawa Tūroa o Takitimu Lodge. The Lodge can sleep a maximum of 20, but some campervans can be accommodated. Also please advise if you are interested in carpooling (offer a seat, need a seat).
