Trip to Piko Piko POSTPONED

THIS TRIP HAS BEEN POSTPOSED UNTIL EARLY IN 2005 DUE TO BAD WEATHER AND RIVER LEVELS. SORRY FOR THE INCONVENIENCE. The plan is to leave the Botany car park at 9.00am Saturday 4th Dec. NB The fossil forest site is only accessible when the Waiau River is reasonably low, so we will send an e-mail message to confirm that the river level is OK by 12 noon on Friday 3rd. We'll have a one hour stop at a fossil site with silicified tree stumps near Mataura on the way. After that we will drive to Piko Piko itself for a 1pm lunch (about a 4 hour drive altogether). There is a short drive over private farmland and then a 15 min walk to the fossil forest from the cars. We can spend about 2 hours looking at the tree stumps, fallen logs, leaf fossils, and other interesting concretions, etc. After fossil viewing we have been asked to contribute to a species list for the beech forest with large number of divaricating shrubs on the adjacent river bank. So it will be a mix of ancient and modern floral activities. The plan is to be finished by about 5pm at the site. The trip officially ends here as Daphne is booked up for Sunday, but there are plenty of things to be seen in the local area, such as Lake Hauroko, or the Giant Totaras, if people wanted to do stuff the next day. Bookings essential. Contact Ian Radford (w 479 9065 or h 472 7470) to book a place.