Gollan's Bait and Trap Line Loop

 

A delightful grove of Nikau palm trees that I stumbled into

After a bit of inertia caused by feeling under the weather I headed back towards my recently discovered bait line on the Creek.  I’m loving these bait and trap lines.  The thought of photographing things with my macro lens helped to get me out of the house.

Eyelash fungi.  These are so small that I did not
notice that the black rings were hairs until I 
got home and looked at my photos on my computer.

I made this hike into a loop and made it out just before dark.  Covid restrictions have been eased and I can now hike outside of my region.  I see some trips in my future.

I found a bunch of geocaches on the trap line and I will log them AFTER I log my upcoming 1,000th find. 

It will soon be fall mushroom season back home but I found some spring Hydnums here today.

I’m waiting to find out if I can stay in New Zealand.  There is more than one reason why I might not be able to stay here.  One of the reasons is the severe housing crisis.

5 miles with 1,350 feet in elevation gain

Sadly this trap was my view at the best lunch spot I found at lunch time

This is where the fun and solitude start

Little Creek

Large liverwort or moss.  I need to look for a costa (midrib) with
my hand lens to know for sure

Gaint complex thallus liverwort  Monocela forsteri.

Following the Bait Lines

Gollan's Creek

 We are on level three lockdown in New Zealand so I have plenty of time to blog some of my older hikes.

This one started as a planned brushcrash to take me to a pretty valley off the trail.  After I did a bit of reasearch on the net I discovered that my planned route was on a bait and trap line.  So this would not be a brush crash but would be nice and quiet.

I'm really starting to like the bait and trap lines, the lines are just barely trails and they don't get visited much.  They have the same solitude advantages as brush crashing but with much less risk.

I had trouble staying on route though, a lot of trouble!  I went way to far to the right and I kept crossing ridge after ridge on the left trying to fix my course.  How could I be so many ridges off?  Back home I can clearly see my track log so I know what happened.  Finally I found the correct line and down I headed only to find that I had gotten off the line yet again!  More backtracking and I was on the right line again and did not lose it. By this time it was 2pm.  I debated coming back to do this another day, but I went for it.

What a pretty spot I found and I had it all to myself!  I lingered and had lunch but I had to hurry to get back off the trap line before dark. I did not want to risk getting lost off trail.  My delorme battery was dead and I did not have a cord for it.

I'll be back!

3.5 miles with 1,400 feet gain on this up and down route