Tarikākā revisited

Finding new joy in a familiar place (11 minute read)

When I was completing last week’s article about outrage, I was unexpectedly struck by some outrage of my own. I was behind on my work – my own fault because I’d overcommitted myself – and feeling under pressure. Then, late on Saturday night, sitting in the left-hand margin of my document right next to the cursor, I saw a strange symbol which had never been there before.

If I typed something, it went away, but every time I moved to a new line it popped up again. It wasn’t only the distraction of a symbol flicking on and off in the margin of my document. The symbol was encouraging me to use artificial intelligence to write my article. That is something I have no intention of doing, but it kept nagging me, appearing again and again, as if I was going to change my mind.

I knew that part of my frustration was because I’m deeply troubled by the risks we face from the unregulated proliferation of artificial intelligence. I considered writing this week’s article on artificial intelligence for that reason, but I haven’t untangled it enough in my own mind to explain it. I also lost so much time from poor concentration and searching for solutions to make the symbol go away that I realised I wasn’t going to do justice to my planned article, about the convergence of two important issues with high outrage – vaccines and gene technology.

In the end, I decided to write something completely different. In a week where I’ve been struggling and the world feels dark for so many reasons, I’ve written about something which brings me joy.

Ever since I began helping to restore a local patch of forest, I’ve been wondering about the plants which were previously found in the area. The best forest nearby is in Khandallah Park, on the slopes of Tarikākā (sometimes called Mt Kaukau), one of the highest peaks surrounding Wellington Harbour. I asked someone from the Wellington Botanical Society whether they had been there recently, in the hope I might be able to tag along on a trip. The response came back saying they hadn’t been there recently, but if I wanted to lead a trip, they would come.

So, last Saturday I ended up helping to lead a group of more than 20 people through the forest.

It was magical. I’ve walked through that forest dozens of times and hadn’t noticed half of what I saw  in just the first hour with the Botanical Society. True, I’ve mostly had a reactive and hyperactive dog on the end of a lead, which does limit my ability to concentrate on plants. But what really made the difference was the expert eyes.

Khandallah Park is one of Wellington’s treasures, but it took me a while to appreciate it. When I first arrived in Wellington, I was coming from a job which had taken me to some stunning, remote areas. I didn’t expect much from forest growing right on the edge of a city. It was a place to walk up a hill, with some bush, some gorse and some pasture on the tops. The views from the top were stunning, but most of my energy was spent getting up, not paying close attention on the way.

I did notice a couple of my favourite plants there, though. The first might seem an odd sort of favourite plant, a nondescript shrub whose small leaves have a potent odour. It goes by the common name of stinkwood, but I prefer to use a translation of the scientific name, Coprosma foetidissima, to describe it: the stinkiest poo-smelling plant. The name is entirely accurate, and it’s the reason I love the plant so much. It’s a science teacher’s dream. If you want to get children interested in botany, show them a plant which smells of poo and which they can call the stinkiest poo-smelling plant, and you’re on your way.  

The other favourite which I noticed years ago in the forest at Khandallah Park was a type of fern known as a filmy fern. These small ferns have fronds so delicate that they are almost transparent. Most species grow only in constantly humid conditions and need a large enough area of forest to create a suitable environment. The presence of filmy ferns was an encouraging sign that there was some decent forest around. But I assumed that the forest of Khandallah Park was like most of the forest around Wellington: stripped of much of its diversity by logging and burning, and only slowly recovering. It was only when I looked into the history that I realised Khandallah Park was one of the few areas to escape the repeated burning by settlers following their arrival in 1839.

There are at least three different fern species in this image, but the main one is a filmy fern (image credit: Melanie Newfield)

I became interested in the history a few years ago, prompted by my attempt to learn the meaning of the name Mt Kaukau. I assumed it was a Māori word, but the only meaning I could find, to swim or bathe, made little sense. There are three important streams which flow from its slopes, a branch of the Waitohi from the eastern side, a branch of the Kaiwharawhara from the west and a couple of tributaries of the Ohariu from the north, but I couldn’t see why the hill itself would have acquired the name Kaukau. There is also a swimming pool, but that was built in the 1920s.

As I read further, I realised that I was looking up the wrong name. Māori know it as Tarikākā, which translates as to snare kākā (for those outside New Zealand, the kākā is our large forest parrot). I assume that kākā were once so abundant there that the area was used for that purpose. As far as I could tell, European settlers shortened the name to Kākā, and sometimes mispronounced it as Kaukau. I found both forms in use in old documents until around the 1940s.

Not everyone was impressed with the shortened name. While looking through some copies of the Onslow Historical Society’s newsletter, I found an article where a resident explained that her father, Chief Draftsman with New Zealand Lands and Survey, had tried to have the maps corrected back to Tarikākā in the 1920s. When he was unsuccessful, he proposed the name be used for a street in the area of railway housing being constructed in the vicinity, ensuring that the name remained on the map, even if not applied to the mountain.

The significance of the name has grown in the last few years. When I first began walking in the area, there wasn’t a chance of hearing or seeing a kākā there. A few had been introduced to the Zealandia sanctuary, but there was no expectation of seeing them elsewhere. Over the last two decades, though, ongoing pest control beyond Zealandia’s fence has meant that birds which left the sanctuary had a greater chance of surviving. By 2021, it was not only possible to see and hear kākā on Tarikākā, but they were breeding in the forest there. Now, every time I hear one, it seems to me that something important has been given back to the mountain, and to all of us.

By the late 1800s, most of the forest around Wellington had been obliterated. On the whole, the European settlers saw native forest as an obstacle to development. Once the large trees had been felled for timber, the forest had no further use, so was burned off.  But, in time, some of them began to value the forest which remained.

A few years ago, when I was trying to untangle the history of the hill’s name, I found some documents outlining the history of Khandallah Park in the National Archives. I learned that in 1897, an area containing one of the last unburned forest remnants came up for sale. A number of local residents decided to put in money to buy it and make it into a reserve. This became the Khandallah Domain. In time, more land was added and it became the 60 hectare Khandallah Park.

When I realised that Khandallah Park contained areas of original forest, I began to look more closely at what was, and wasn’t, there. I realised that our native conifers or softwoods were largely missing – they were the species valued most for timber and so had been cut down. But there were some large and beautiful hardwood trees remaining, some of which must be hundreds of years old. For me, though, the forest was most beautiful at ground level. There were stunning areas of moss, huge patches which I would never see in forest which was regrowing after being burned and put into pasture. There were large patches of filmy fern. And there was a deep layer of dead leaves, which might not sound exciting, but is truly precious. This layer acts like a sponge when rain falls, protecting the land and waterways from erosion and floods.

Moss, with the rhizome of a fern snaking through it on the right (image credit: Melanie Newfield)

I also realised that I was missing a lot on my rushed walks, where I was constantly trying to slow down an over-eager dog. Hence my approach to the botanical society.

In preparation for leading the trip, I went out one morning with an experienced botanical society member who knew the park much better than I did. The weather forecast said showers, so I wore my raincoat, but didn’t wear my waterproof overtrousers, which get hot when I’m walking up hills. Unfortunately, the forecast was wrong. We got constant heavy rain, and by the time I returned to the car, I was sodden. My trousers were soaked and water was running down into my boots.

I was also elated. I had been shown two side tracks I never knew existed, and there were so many more interesting plants than I had imagined. I couldn’t wait to get back for a closer look.

I’d have liked a fine day for my field trip, but it didn’t rain, and that was good enough. There were more than 20 people ranging from expert professional and amateur botanists to people who only knew a limited number of native plants and wanted to learn a few more. We walked along the concrete path to the forest entrance, and then the group scattered. Some were crouched down by a mossy bank, with magnifying lenses held to their eyes. Some had brought out books and were comparing the images with the plants they saw. Some were giving lessons on how to identify certain species. Some scrambled off the track, a few down to where the stream flowed, others up a steep bank.

After an hour, we had travelled about fifty metres. I’d learned several new species and couldn’t wait to learn more, but I also had to chase the group on a little. The area by the forest entrance is lovely, but it’s far from the most diverse in terms of plants. The most interesting species were some distance away, and at the rate we were going, we wouldn’t reach them by nightfall.

It took some time, but eventually we reached the area where my favourite stinkiest poo-smelling plants grow. We found a spot which wasn’t too close to any of them, and sat down for lunch. Now, we had reached the place we were aiming for.

In all my walking around Khandallah Park, I hadn’t realised the significance of this area. Around Wellington, there’s almost nowhere else that the stinkiest poo-smelling plant grows. But it isn’t alone. Alongside the most horrible-smelling native plant can be found one of the most delightful, raukawa. To Māori, it is symbolic of love, the leaves used as a perfume by an important ancestor. There’s very little of it anywhere else around Wellington.

I had been delighted to find any filmy ferns at all in Khandallah Park, but I learned that there were half a dozen different species growing there – again, including those found in few other areas around Wellington. One of my favourites is a species which has a particularly vivid lime-green colour, and is normally found only on the trunks of mature tree ferns. But we found a large patch of it thriving on the stump of a fallen pine tree.

I’m not going to list all the plants we found here – I’ll save that for the botanical society, where telling people the scientific names of all the plants you saw counts as normal conversation. But it’s fair to say that my brain was stuffed full of new knowledge as a result of the field trip. I was also feeling gratitude. For all my horror at the destruction of Wellington’s environment by the early settlers, I’m grateful that a few of them thought to preserve a little of Tarikākā’s forest. I’m grateful for the knowledge of the experts who showed me so many new plants, ranging from those with many decades of experience to the energetic student who has documented the locations for many of the uncommon plants. I’m grateful for Wellington’s rain, because without it there would never be such lush forest. And I’m grateful that I can find joy in a simple pleasure like walking through the forest and looking at the plants.