Following the Fungi Back to Abel Tasman
A walk along the coastal track and the Tinline Loop at the beginning of the fungi season
I moved to Kaiteriteri recently, just down the road from where I lived when I first came to New Zealand.
Marahau is only a 20-minute drive up the winding road toward Abel Tasman. I’ve written about this place many times before. It’s special to me because it’s where my fungi journey began, and my first winter here I covered a lot of ground and discovered a lot of species.
One of the local hotspots is the Tinline Loop, on the way to Coquille Bay along the coast track. I arrived at the carpark at 10 (a late start) and made my way across the boardwalk, taking in the familiar sight of Sandy Bay and the ever-changing sand ripples exposed at low tide.
Right near the entrance, I found something rare: Cuphophyllus cheelii, a light purple-mauve mushroom growing from the side of the trail. It has only been observed on iNaturalist a handful of times in NZ.
I continued on to Tinline, where I spent the next few hours photographing Mycena roseoflava and Entoloma hochstetteri. This was the first place I ever found Entoloma hochstetteri (exactly seven years ago to the day) and there it was again, in the same spot, at the base of a fern.
The most extraordinary find of the day was a huge fern trunk completely covered in Gliophorus lilacipes. There were hundreds of them.
I spent ages trying to choose the most photogenic clusters and setting up my tripod. A true paradox of choice. I’m sure I spend about ten times longer positioning the tripod and contorting myself into place than I do actually taking photos.
Along the way, I also spotted green Gliophorus and young purple Laccaria.
Eventually, both my camera batteries died, so I called it a day and walked back along the coast from Coquille Bay to Tinline and Sandy Bay. I poked around the shoreline for a while and watched wekas scavenging for cockles and snails.
I still feel like I have unfinished business here. Fungi season has only just begun, and I know I’ll be coming back many more times over the coming months.
Between the holiday park where I stay and Kaiteriteri beach is a short estuary trail. These are some of the species I’ve found along the way - including some bioluminescent Mycena roseoflava:
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