SOME NOTES on the EAR NORTH. - George Mason
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44. SOME NOTES ON THE EAR NORTH. - George Mason, Scot's PT. ^...^ 1?. r The North Cape or Aupouri Peninsula consists of a much dissected tableland in the extreme north connected by a great tombolo sweeping south-east to the ancient mainland at Ahipara. Its extreme length on the west coast is sixty miles, but its breadth in some places is less than five miles. Much of the area is very low lying especially towards the southern end. There are few hills of any height - Mt. Camelr. situated on a narrow tongue of land on the seaward side of Houhora Harbour, reaches to 774 feet, and in several places along the extreme northern coast the hills rise to just over 1000 feet e.g. Unuwhao, 1063 feet, at the eastern end of Spirits Bay. Northwards from the mainland at Awanui the country is very young geologically being of Recent Age. Extending in a belt from Waipapakauri near the shores of Rangaunu Harbour, along the Awanui River to Kaitaia, and then out to the west coast at Ahipara are low lying alluvial plains consisting of swampy and sandy peat deposits. These organic soils now Support a rich pasture grassland of Paspalum, Rye grass and Clover which is the basis of a prosperous dairying industry as on the Kaitaia Plat. Northwards from here connecting Ahipara to the North Cape area proper are extensive sand dunes of very recent origin. These wind blown sands cover the older rock formations of the coast and being bare of vegetation quite often are constantly moving inland. They farm a continuous belt 50 miles long and sometimes extend right across the peninsula to the east coast. This Par North area has been subject to considerable fluctuations in level since the end of the Tertiary Period. At some time it was reduced to a few small islands separated by shallow seas from the northern mainland - then to a more elevated stretch of land than at present so that it was probably joined to the Three Kings group further to the north. It may have bean at this time that the Kauri forests flourished here, but as the land sank to its present leve these were eliminated by encroaching sand and by the land becoming swampy with numerous shallow lakes and ponds as now. 45. North of Awanui are extensive peat swamps extending out to the west coast. Large quantities of Kauri gum have been taken from such swampy ground, but the drifting sand dunes overly much of this Kauri gum peat. At Waipapakauri the hills are blanketed with a very dense and pure growth of the introduced Hakea acicularis. The hills from here northwards to Houhora Harbour are low and scrub covered but drifting sand from the west coast is encroaching on the inland farms. In some localities the sand invasion has been as rapid as 200-250 yards in a few months. The land here consists of older, consolidated Pleistocene sands which form the backbone of this country, and connects the far north tableland to the southern mainland. The vegetation is very barren and scanty, consisting of manuka and bracken heath on the 1 .' hills with sedges and raupo in the swampy valleys. One soon realises that the landscape is quite devoid of trees and that it is characterised by the monotonous grey-green colouring of Leptospermum which strongly dominates this heath, Houhora Harbour is dominated by Mt. Camel (named by Captain Cook) and this more elevated mass is composed of an outcrop of harder and more ancient rocks. It was originally scrub covered but since the early days has been repeatedly burnt resulting in the northern and eastern slopes being eroded down to bare clay leaving a truly barren and blackened landscape. Firing of the vegetation has long been characteristic of the Par North and therefore no Europeans have seen the true natural vegetation here. Fires lit by the original inhabitants, the Aupouri (black smoke) tribe, probably swept over much of this open country before the arrival of the pakeha. The primitive manuka heath with its dense, closed canopy has gradually deteriorated with this continual firing and in places the indigenous induced grass Danthonia semiannularis has spread widely over scrub covered land which has been repeatedly burnt. Apart from an attempt at pine afforestation around Ngataki, the gumlands extend northwards. Here an occasional old gumdigger gains a scanty livelihood as he further adds to the depletion of the semi-natural heath and swamplands by repeated firing. Prickly thickets of Hakea were common in the scrub and are evidently spreading rapidly - this exotic could well have been left in its native home, Australia. Between Waihopo and Ngataki the golden wattle (Acacia longifolia) is most abundant, no doubt helped much by firing, and also by its own prolific seeding, rapid germination and growth. At Te Kao the consolidated sands end and a mid-Tertiary volcanic conglomerate now is present, and this is shown by the road cuttings of a red clay with ironstone pebbles. Low lying alluvial flats near Te Kao and some of the surrounding gently undulating country, all less than 200 feet above sea level, are grassed in a paspalum, rye grass, clover pasture. But the land north of Tangaoke rises to over 300 feet becoming hilly and of intense relief with very few flat areas. These latter are largely confined to around the shores of Parengarenga Harbour which is an extensive inlet formed by the drowning of a sunken stream system. The south head of the Harbour is built of dazzling white sand which must be almost pure silica and it finds use in the glass making industry. From here the Harbour spreads out in all directions giving a very irregular outline - shallow arms run to the north and south and almost across to the west coast. At low water the greater part of the Harbour is bare of water leaving mudflats drained by channels which are fringed with mangroves. The muddy inlets and their streams run inland and terminate in the usual swamp vegetation between the low hills. The adjacent country is quite bare of forest and the open gumland vegetation is often sparse. But plants more of note were Pomaderris edgerleyi. Epacris pauciflora and the climbing parasite Cassytha paniculata interlaced and trailing everywhere, Cassytha, an endemic to the Far North, is especially abundant in manuka heath which has been repeatedly burnt in recent years. 46. From the Te Hapua ro ad junction the road ascends through more gumlands and then turns down into the more fertile valley in which Te Paki Station homestead is situated amongst the farm trees. The pastures are composed mainly of three introduced grasses - Paspalum dilatatum, perennial ryegrass (Lolium perenne) and white clover (Trifolium repens). This pasture shows marked seasonal changes. In summer the ryegrass-clover combination tends to dry off to a drab brown appearance, but the paspalum dominates as green patches. The drier ridges are grassed in Danthonia (p. semiannularis, D. pilosa and crosses between these two spp.). Juncus polyanthemus was common over the wetter land. By the old Te Paki stream road many different varieties of Leptospermum scoparium (var. incanum) and L. ericoides (var. lineatum) were noted in the scrub with a silky-leaved form, possibly approaching L. sinclairii. The consistently uniform drab colour of the manuka heath is relieved somewhat by the pink flowered variety of L. scoparium which was common here. On the encroaching west coast dunes were growing such common arenarian plants as Cassinia retorta, Arundo conspicua, phormium tenax and the introduced Lupinus arboreus. One of the large fresh water lakes, dammed back by the ever-moving sands, contained some interesting water plants, besides the fringing Typha - these included two members of the order Charales (Nitella sp. and ehara sp., both of which were conspicuously fertile) and Potamogeton polygonifolius, all of -which were retrieved from the sandy lake floor. Nearer the coast the huge sandhills are often almost completely bare of vegetation, though the dune foreshore is somewhat stabilised by the native sand binder, Spinifex and, to a lesser extent, by the sedge, Desmoschoenus spiralis. The sand colonising plants occur in a definite regular pattern with an unstable, sparsely vegetated zone near the coast, to a semi-stable belt, then to a fixed dune area further inland. Thus the Spinifex zone has many bare areas with a few associated plants such as Calystegia soldanella and Oxalis corniculata. The yellow dune phase has less bare ground with Cassinia dominant; also present are Muehlenbeckia complexa. Coprosma acerosa and the sprawling shrub, Pimelia arenaria. Arundo conspicua and the sedge, Scirpus nodosus, are tussock forms found here. Finally, the grey dune phase has a complete ground cover of shrubs dominated by Leptospermum with a few scattered clumps of Pohutakawa. Two miles northwards from the Te Paki stream mouth, along the beach, is Scott's Point or Pukekarea. This bold, rocky headland forms the northern termination (at least for motoring anyway) of the so-called Ninety Mile Beach. Around its cliffs are the usual coastal species with some coastal shrub vegetation such as Pseudopanax lessonii and Coprosma repens in the valleys. In one of the gully bays grows the now rare .Fuschia procumbens with its peculiar heterostylous flowers. The top of the bluff is a broad, windswept plateau, the manuka scrub is low and windshorn with flax more common than further inland. Inland, in the damp valleys between the sandhills, are found such swamp sedges as Eleocharis sphacelata, Cladium glomeratum. C. articulatum and Schoenus tendo. Here in the moist sand was Gunnera arenaria with its yellowish- red spikes loaded with ripe fruit.