B last entered the Whirinaki Forest in the early 1980s, on a high school field trip, counting seedlings and making observations with pencil and paper as a junior member of the school’s ecology club. With the aid of digital technology, we can share the sights and sounds of this ancient forest with you.
Coordinates
After chores in Whakatāne we turned inland. Kiwifruit vines are a common sight in the Bay of Plenty region (first photo). Visible from the coast, the volcanic cone of Puauaki | Mt Edgecumbe at 821m grew larger (second photo); it last erupted around 2,300 years ago. Lake Aniwaniwa came into being when the Rangitaiki River was dammed (third photo). A narrow dirt road leads to DOC’s Sanctuary Campsite at Minginui (final photo).
Night in the forest
Whirinaki Te Pua-a-Tāne Conservation Park, together with adjacent Te Urewera, forms the largest tract of native forest (podocarps, with beech at higher altitudes) in North Island; this forms a refuge for rare and endangered species. Although outside with eyes trained upwards, we saw no long-tailed bats in the warm dusk sky (first photo). On the Night Life Walk, out and back via 1.4km of the Sanctuary Loop Walk from Minginui camp (third photo) we recorded bird calls and saw glow worms, looking like fallen stars in the darkness of the bush (final photo).
Here are the sounds of the forest, just after dark:
The ruru | morepork’s song is readily identified—NZ’s only remaining owl calls out it’s own name (“more-pork”):
What we initially thought to be the call of a male kiwi, could in fact be the shriek of a morepork (we were told they can mimic a kiwi’s call):
Arohaki Lagoon
Arohaki Lagoon Track begins at the end of River Road, via a small car park 1.5km beyond the main car park.
Tree ferns, tall in their own right, seemed diminutive beneath the giant tawa/ podocarp canopy (first photo). Not your usual shelf fungus, this Cyclocybe parasitica or tawaka in Māori had made its home on the side of a tree (second photo). We heard the kākā calling for some time before we spotted him in trees (final photo).
Here’s our recording of the kākā’s call:
Tall kahikatea surround the rain-fed lagoon, which can become dry during summer:
Even before we made the lagoon, it’s proximity was declared by a cacophony of native frogs:
On the lagoon we spotted endemic Poliocephalus rufopectus/ NZ grebe/ weweia (first photo). In the reeds on the water’s edge were NZ’s largest damselfly, the endemic Austrolestes colensonis/ blue damselfly/ kēkēwai (second photo), and the more common native Xanthocnemis zealandica/ red damselfly/ kihitara (third photo). Surrounding the viewing platform the small native herb Lobelia angulata/ pānakenake peeked out from among the grasses and lichens (final photo).
The 2.7km track took us around an hour to reach the lagoon; return is via the same route:
Whirinaki River
We returned to the main car park to eat lunch before our next walk, during which time we had a winged visitor:
The Whirinaki Waterfall Loop Track follows the Whirinaki River (first photo) upstream to Whirinaki Waterfall, then loops back via the opposite bank. Prumnopitys taxifolia/ black pine/ mataī bark has a distinctive “hammered” appearance (second photo). Endemic Cyathea dealbata/ silver fern/ ponga is a NZ icon, known for its silvery-white underside (third photo). Whirinaki Falls had some flow, but vantage points were limited (final photo).
We came across what may have been a decaying Entoloma canoconicum fungus (first photo) and enjoyed another encounter with the endemic Uropetala carovei/ giant dragonfly/ kapokapowai, females of which can reach a 13cm wingspan—this is a male given the appendages at the abdominal tip (second photo). Heimiomyces velutipes is native fungus, found as here on rotting logs (third photo). A native emerald-colour Stethaspis longicornis/ mumu chafer was hooked by the wing in Carex uncinata, also known rather appropriately as “bastard grass” (final photo).
The 11km loop took us around 3 hours:
As options for motorhomes are limited in the forest, and there was evidence of vandalism in the area, we returned to Lake Aniwaniwa for the night and headed back to the coast the following morning, ready to continue east along the Bay of Plenty coast.
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