Paparoa National Park
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Become a Paparoa National Park KIWI RANGER!™ It’s a great way to get to know this special place … Welcome!Welcome to Paparoa National Park. There are many great places to explore and amazing plants, birds, and insects to discover. Try out the different activities and find out for yourself why this is such an amazing National Park! Let’s get started! My Name Where I live Other parks and sanctuaries I’ve visited To become a Paparoa KIWI RANGER ™ If you are aged 6 and under do three activities. If you are aged 7 to 9 do five activities. If you are aged 10 to 100 do seven activities. But you don’t have to stop there – why not do them all! KIWI RANGERS are people who… ™ • Care about Paparoa National Park • Care about native plants, animals and conservation • Think this place is special and want to know more When you are finished, take your KIWI RANGER ™ booklet to the Paparoa National Park Visitor Centre in Punakaiki (03 731 1895), where a ranger will check it and award your badge. Or post it to us - see the inside back page for more details. Activity 1: Getting Out There Go for a walk on one of Paparoa National Park’s many tracks Which track did you walk? What birds and insects did you see or hear along the way? What did you most enjoy about your walk? To become a Paparoa KIWI RANGER If you are aged 6 and under do three activities. If you are aged 7 to 9 do five activities. If you are aged 10 to 100 do seven activities. But you don’t have to stop there – why not do them all! What other tracks have you also walked in Paparoa National Park? Short walks Dolomite Point KIWI RANGERS are people who… Truman Track • Care about Paparoa National Park Pororari to Punakaiki River Track • Care about native plants, animals and conservation Walks that need a little more experience • Think this place is special and want to know more Cave Creek / Kotihotiho Track Fox River Caves Ballroom Overhang Sections of the Inland Pack Track Ask at the Visitor Centre for more information... Activity 2: Stay safe in the outdoors Paparoa National Park has some spectacular places to enjoy, but along with its beauty and adventure come hazards. It’s so important to stay safe in the outdoors. In each of the following environments, think of two hazards to be aware of and ways you can prevent them. 1. On coastline HAZARD WAY TO PREVENT IT eg. Cliffs eg don’t climb over any barriers 2. Along river valleys HAZARD WAY TO PREVENT IT 3. In the limestone cliff and cave areas HAZARD WAY TO PREVENT IT HINT: Look out for helpful signs around the park to help you identify these EXTRA! What is a grike? Activity 3: Nature’s Rhythm During your walk around Dolomite Point stop at Putai Blowhole. Listen carefully for at least two minutes and take in all the sounds you can hear. You can even move your arms as if you were conducting nature’s music! Mark with lines, circles, crosses etc the pattern or rhythm you hear on the chart below. Also use made-up words (like wooooshhhh etc) to describe the different types of sounds you hear. soft & high notes loud & heavy notes start 30 secs 60 secs 90 secs 120 secs If these rhythms are nature’s music – what are its instruments? Draw or write the different parts of nature that work together to make the sounds you’ve heard... HINT… High tide is the best time to do this activity Activity 4: Deep in the cavern Take a torch and follow this sensory trail through the Punakaiki Cavern (be sure to ask for advice on conditions at the Visitor Centre). Stop inside the entrance – can MY MAP! you feel a change in the air? Turn off your torch – what can you see now? Find an interesting piece of wall. With the torch off reach out and touch the wall. What does it feel like? Elsewhere in the cavern again turn off your torch. What can you smell? Go to another part of the cavern. Turn off your torch and describe what you hear. Once back outside draw a map of the cave. Draw an arrow to connect each of your answers to the parts of the cave you explored with your different senses. TREAD CAREFULLY and leave nothing behind that could disturb this fragile ecosystem! To find out more… about caves and caverns check out the DOC website at the Visitor Centre. Activity 5: Giants Of The Forest Along the Truman Track you will see a very big and old podocarp tree called a MATAI. Some say it’s more than 800 years old! LOOK UP AND UP AND UP… How tall do you think this tree is? [one way to work this out is to ask one per- son to stand at the tree’s base, then stand further back along the track and imagine how many people would need to stand on top of each other to reach the top!] Draw a matai leaf from one found on the ground or from the panel ... Can you find and count all of the small baby matai grow- ing around this giant? [Which one do you think might grow up to become the next giant tree here?] Look closer – this giant tree is actually two! Northern rātā starts life as a vine - what do you call a plant that lives off another? Now look closely at these two giant trees. How many other types or species of plants can you see living on them. DID YOU KNOW?…there are many more forest giants in Paparoa National Park, like rimu, red beech and kahikatea. Look out for them on your other walks! Activity 6 Water - The Life Force Of Paparoa Ask the Visitor Centre staff to play ‘Te Paparoa O Tuterakiwhanoa’. It shows how water created this special environment. During your walks in the park can you find two ways water has shaped the limestone landscape? Make drawings or diagrams of what you have seen that show these forces of water at work. Remember to label your drawings/ diagrams as much as you can… What is the most sacred type of water to Māori ? DID YOU KNOW…Rain water mixed up with rotting trees and plants makes a brown acidic ‘tea’ that speeds up the way water erodes the limestone. Activity 7 Growing Up – Nikau-Style Paparoa National Park is one of the easiest places to see nikau – our only native palm tree. FRONDS It is very slow-growing – it takes 50 years before the trunk is even formed! As it grows, the palm sheds its outer fronds, and this leaves a ring on the trunk. About two rings are formed each year. LEAF STRIPS Pick one tree in a nikau grove and count its rings. Draw the rings on this picture Make storage How old do you containers think your tree is? PALM BERRIES and pots Thatch houses Nikau were an important plant to Māori and were used in TRUNK Weave into hats, mats, many ways. baskets and leggings Can you match these ways the nikau was used to the labelled parts of the nikau? Make necklaces or eaten when green Activity 8 Nature’s Secret Pancake Recipe! Take a walk around Dolomite Point and use the information panels to help fill the words from the ‘ingredients list’ into these sentences. Starting 35 million years ago, fragments of shell and skeleton sunk to the sea floor. Immense ‘p’ressure plus mud and sand created alternating layers of mudst’o’ne and limestone. U’P’LIFT of the limestone from the SE’A’BED started about 5 million YEARS ago. For the last 100,000 years E’R’OSION has continued to shape the buttresses. The addition of W’A’VES , wind and R’A’IN are very important ingredients in making excellent PANCAKE rocks! ‘INGREDIENTS LIST’ erosion sand limestone seabed mudstone skeleton pancake uplift pressure waves rain years Now put the letters with stars above them in the spaces below... And Unscramble them to CRACK THE CODE! ! WHEN YOU GET HOME TRY OUT THIS PANCAKE RECIPE! 2 cups of flour (try out different flours like wholemeal, rice, buckwheat etc) 1 tsp baking soda 1 tbsp sugar 3 eggs 2 cups of yoghurt or soured milk (sour milk for 5 minutes with a tbsp of lemon or vinegar) 1tbsp melted butter/oil Whisk eggs well, mix in soured milk/yogurt and add baking soda and sugar. Sift in flours and mix carefully, then add melted butter/oil. Add berries in the batter or on top - yum! Cook on hot pan until bubbles just break before flipping…then stack ‘em up! Activity 9: Taiko Taiko spend their lives at sea, only visiting land to breed. Taiko only come ashore under the cover of darkness, walking the forest floor to their burrow and hungry chick. Check out the display of the Taiko or Westland Petrel in the Visitor Centre. Name two birds you know of that are a similar size. According to Māori legend, why do Taiko breed on land and not the sea? Taiko only nest in one place – where is Taiko-Town? What are two things about Taiko that allow it to survive despite the threats from predators like stoats and possums? How does the Department of Conservation help to protect Taiko? DID YOU KNOW? Taiko rarely utter a sound when flying, but once on the ground they are a noisy bunch! They’re terrific pilots.