22 March 2026

On a bright sunny morning eight of us set off for the Pan Pac reserve up the Pakuratahi valley with the required permit in hand. Pakuratahi bush is a 68 hectare area with patches of remnant native vegetation that has been covenanted under QE2. With us was Marie Taylor of Plant Hawkes Bay who has had a lot to do with reserve, supplying  the plants for its revegetation and knowing what all the more obscure trees and bushes are called.

Just before we parked up Christine thought that she had seen a bittern and sure enough when we walked back to look one flew off. We walked uphill on a four wheel drive track and entered the reserve through a gate in the deer fence. Last time we were there Gabrielle had wiped out big portions of the fence and there were more deer in than out, but this has all been repaired and the only plant predator we came across turned out to be a sheep.

One of the features of this reserve, last time we were there was a very rare cucurbit, known as native cucumber and I was hoping to see a plant this time, to cut a long story off at the knees we saw heaps, literally acres of it and lots of small plants coming up all over the place, it reminded me of a choko but with small bristly fruit. Talk about a conservation turnaround, uber rare plant to” invasive weed” in under two years, but please remember if you go to look at them that they are very susceptible to disease carried by other curcubits eg. Cucumbers.

Anyhow we had a very enjoyable morning botanising and walking through and then around the outside of this interesting and very pretty little  private reserve.The trees from Marie’s nursery are coming along really well and it will be fascinating to watch them fill in the spaces and return the land to covered bush over the next few years.  Many thanks to Pan Pac for giving us permission to visit.

On the way home we stopped off at another conservation area right next to the mill, the Ken Ross Reserve. This reserve is planted out in natives and set up so that locals have an escape route in the event of a tsunami ( some sort of raw fish dish with rice ). The walkway there is not a long walk but very interesting and with a great view over the coast and the mill.

Party: Peter B, Marie T, Christine B, Steve B,  Christine L, Selina C, Judith R and Glenda H