Tiny Fungi

Today a dozen members of our camera club travelled in 4x4 convoy to a lovely forested valley known as Pine Valley. Although there are some pines evident in the lower valley the vegetation is mainly native forest. The road-end is about 50 km to the road end from Blenheim, the last sections of road being through farmland and then into areas which are the responsibility of the Department of Conservation.
Once at the car-park we sorted our camera gear and in twos and threes departed along a walking track which eventually winds up to the summit of a well-known peak in the Richmond Range, Mt Fishtail.
Of course we did not go mountaineering on this trip. Our focus was on capturing images of the amazing varieties of fungi that abound in this valley. They range from large showy affairs to tiny almost microscopic fungi.
A number of our party did not progress any distance at all along the track because they found such an enormous number of different species within a very short distance. This profusion of fungi kept them happily occupied for hours.
Some of us ventured across a very narrow, somewhat scary swing bridge...one person at a time... over the Pine Valley River. We then picked our way to a hut which was supposedly only 20 minutes walk away from the swing bridge area. It took us a good hour to get to the hut. We kept being distracted by fungi galore. It was just magical.
The oldest person among the few who reached the hut was a sprightly 85 year old. Watching her negotiating the swing bridge had to be seen to be believed. She is amazing.
On our way back we met up with a large group of boy scouts and girl scouts and their leaders. They came from both the Marlborough and Nelson districts and were spending the weekend camping at the old Pine Valley School, now a well used recreation centre. They were having great fun.
The weather was kind despite adverse forecasts. The low cloud cleared and we even had sunshine when we got back to the car-park in time for a late lunch.
There we met up again with two young Frenchmen who were doing photography along the track earlier in the day.
They had recently harvested an enormous amount of an edible variety of fungi, a variety that is frequently eaten in France but ignored here. Sticky-bun boletes and larch boletes. They were going to a great deal of trouble to prepare this fungi prior to cooking it on their camp stove. I reckon they were preparing enough to keep them extremely well nourished for months to come.
All in all it was a great day out. We all learned from each other and personally I can't wait to get back to Pine Valley for another photographic foray.