Society's Forest Islands in Hawke's Bay

Forest and Bird, Issue 302, 1 November 2001, Page 43

Society's Forest Islands in Hawke's Bay

visits the Society’s lodge and reserves.

PETER WHITE

t 700-825 metres above sea level, Blowhard Bush Reserve is the most elevated of Forest and Bird’s reserves. The 63-hectare forest grows over an

area of limestone which produces karst ridges among the trees. Blowhard got its name in the coaching days as horses struggled to cross the inland ranges of Hawkes Bay. It is located at the corner of Lawrence Rd and the NapierTaihape Rd, approximately 53 kilometres northwest of Hastings. The western boundary adjoins part of Kaweka State Forest Park, administered by the Department of Conservation. The vegetation consists of an island of broadleaf forest with emergent podocarps and localised black beech, bordered

by regenerating forests of kanuka and manuka. Impressive matai, miro and rimu trees aged between 400-800 years grow amongst striking moss-covered limestone formations. Blowhard Bush has a colourcoded track network offering walks of from 30 minutes to two hours, crossing a picturesque stream and meandering amongst the karst scenery, and across the flatter pumice fields of the Glen Ross Range. Lowry Shelter, a picnic shelter built by members of the Hastings-Havelock North branch, stands at the top of the reserve. Since 1969, the Hastings-

Havelock North branch of Forest and Bird, overseen by Roy Peacock, has been restoring the erosion-scarred crest of the reserve, initially with manuka seedlings (which blew away), and then by pouring tutu seeds mixed with sand into shallow cracks in the tephra surface. This was followed by forest duff collected on the reserve. Now the area has developed into manuka shrublands with mountain tutu, forest tutu, papaumu, Cyathodes juniperina, Hebe stricta, kohuhu, mountain flax and Gaultheria species. The branch also conducts twice yearly working bees to remove wilding Pinus contorta trees.