Wellington Harbour from the Eastbourne hills
North toward Hutt city. This series of photos was taken from the tracks traversing East Harbour Regional Park. 5 July (winter) 2010.
The park is a contrast of native forest and rocky coastline, providing a magnificent backdrop to Wellington Harbour. Greater Wellington Regional Council manages the park, which includes land owned by Hutt City Council, Greater Wellington Regional Council, Taranaki Whanui and the Crown.
To the north, where these photos were taken from, the hills between Eastbourne and Wainuiomata are clothed in some of the best beech/rata forest in the Wellington area. In contrast, the damp valley floors contain lush semi-swamp forest including kahikatea, pukatea and nikau palms.
Local volunteers help keep the introduced predators in the park down to low levels with extensive trapping lines for possom and rats. As a result the birds and the plants are coming back strongly. Many of the larger spectacular flowering rata trees are also wrapped with sheet metal in a band around the trunks to prevent possums climbing into them. On the day these photos were taken (5 July which is nearly mid-winter in NZ) the bush was full of flowering rata vine – a sure sign possums are under control as these introduced pests find rata vine highly palatable and can cause local extinctions of this precious plant, so intence is their grazing.
Wellington Harbour from the Eastbourne hills
North toward Hutt city. This series of photos was taken from the tracks traversing East Harbour Regional Park. 5 July (winter) 2010.
The park is a contrast of native forest and rocky coastline, providing a magnificent backdrop to Wellington Harbour. Greater Wellington Regional Council manages the park, which includes land owned by Hutt City Council, Greater Wellington Regional Council, Taranaki Whanui and the Crown.
To the north, where these photos were taken from, the hills between Eastbourne and Wainuiomata are clothed in some of the best beech/rata forest in the Wellington area. In contrast, the damp valley floors contain lush semi-swamp forest including kahikatea, pukatea and nikau palms.
Local volunteers help keep the introduced predators in the park down to low levels with extensive trapping lines for possom and rats. As a result the birds and the plants are coming back strongly. Many of the larger spectacular flowering rata trees are also wrapped with sheet metal in a band around the trunks to prevent possums climbing into them. On the day these photos were taken (5 July which is nearly mid-winter in NZ) the bush was full of flowering rata vine – a sure sign possums are under control as these introduced pests find rata vine highly palatable and can cause local extinctions of this precious plant, so intence is their grazing.