Timing

This is a fair weather walk.

Access

From Picton follow Queen Charlotte Drive 21 km to Linkwater and turn right into Keneperu Road. Portage is 28.5 km. After 42 km head right along Titirangi Road. Keneperu Saddle and the turnoff to Punga Cove is 5 km further. 10.3 km from the junction with Titirangi Road, at the saddle, the road branches. Left goes to Anakoha, right to Titirangi. The track starts opposite this fork.

Track

The first 30 minutes is not bad going. The track is relatively even and well-formed. When the real ascent starts things get tougher. Although there are orange triangles, they are sporadic. The track is steep, rough and indistinct.

Mount Stokes cops the full brunt of Cook Strait winds and periodic storms ravage the forest. The place can look like a bomb site. As you gain altitude the silver beech becomes more stunted and draped with moss.

All of a sudden the forest ends and with a short steep climb you pop out onto the herbfields of the summit. It’s around 2 ¼ hours from the road.

Continue 10 minutes across the tussock to the weather station at the summit (1203 metres).

Flora

Mount Stokes is to all intents and purposes an island. Above the final throws of forest, a mix of silver beech and leatherwood, are two hectares of alpine herbfield and snow tussock. This is the only home for alpine plants in the sounds and displays a curious garden. 14 species of uniquely South Island alpine plants, 6 species of South Island alpine plants whose only representatives in the North Island are in the Tararua Ranges, and 7 further species that occur north and south of the Tararuas, but not in them, live here. This tiny enclave also has its own species. Celmisia macmahonii and a subspecies of Anisotome haastii are thought to live here and nowhere else.

Surprisingly this botanical treasure house was allowed to be ravaged by goats, deer, pigs and stock until the area was fenced in the late 1980s. Other alpine representatives include eyebrights, mountain daisies, gentians and speargrasses.