Rudman's city: Remnant of our city's ancient history escapes destruction

By BRIAN RUDMAN

We Aucklanders have an unfortunate habit of bowling over our historic remnants, then saying whoops, we shouldn't have done that.

But in the case of the hidden 19,000-year-old little rock forest of Epsom, there's a chance we could for once have got it right.

No one is saying anything officially yet, but it seems Gorton Properties, the conditional new owners of the 1.5ha Almorah Rd site, is willing to let some of the property go to the Department of Conservation.

As part of the deal, Auckland City would in turn take on the management of this unique mini-forest.

As so often happens, no one took much interest in this remnant of the city's past until the Government agency Child, Youth and Family Services (CYFS) put it on the market about 18 months ago.

Which is not surprising really. It's tucked away between the Mercy Hospital and the Southern Motorway, and only a few botanists and zoologists were aware of its significance. Or of its existence for that matter.

Once the home of businessman Sir William Goodfellow, the property was sold in 1952 to the Health Department as a hostel for dental trainees.

In 1984, it was transferred to the Social Welfare Department for use as a Youthlink House Trust halfway house. Since 1997, it has been a refuge for street kids and a residence for social workers.

It's not the decaying weatherboard mansion that has everyone's attention but the 1ha of bushland surrounding it. Seems it's one of the three remaining areas of the rock forest that once covered the northeastern slopes of Mt Eden.

Clambering over the broken basalt forest floor, you quickly realise what's unique about this stretch of forest. The trees and ferns are all growing out of and over broken slabs of volcanic rock.

Of the three remaining pockets of this rock forest, Almorah Rd is the largest. The best known is Withiel Thomas Reserve in Withiel Drive. The other is a small pocket in Government House grounds in Mountain Rd.

One of the leaders of the fight to save the Almorah Rd site was Ewen Cameron, the Auckland Museum curator of botany, who says the original vegetation remains virtually untouched.

Wandering about it yesterday, I found it hard to pretend I was stepping back hundreds of years. For a start, instead of bird song, all I could hear was the steady roar of motorway traffic.

It was also impossible to miss the ominous slashes of the surveyors' red paint on several tree trunks, presumably marking where the developer had planned to place his buildings.

Apart from the endemic kawakawa, I was a bit hazy on which tree species predominated, but Mr Cameron enumerated, among others, karaka, titoki, puriri, pigeonwood and mahoe.

I missed the rock snails too, but he assured me there's a rich collection, even outnumbering the 24 species found in Government House.

Then there are the bryophytes and the lichens, but I won't go there.

Last year, Gorton Properties signed a purchase agreement with CYFS, conditional on gaining resource consent from the Auckland City Council for a proposed development.

What followed was a lot of passing the parcel as the city council and Government departments and politicians all tried to shame someone else into paying to keep the forest in public ownership.

Last week, as the March 17 deadline for the sale's becoming unconditional loomed, the breakthrough came.

CYFS refuses to comment "due to commercial sensitivity" but it seems an agreement has been reached which it is hoped will leave the forest undeveloped.

The Department of Conservation and the developer will agree to split the land between them, leaving the trees in the department's ownership.

Auckland City will agree to a modified resource consent to the development of the land now occupied by the old mansion and its immediate grounds. It will also take over management of the forest.

The deal is not complete yet. Boundaries have still to be agreed, and who is going to pay what.

The department also has the little problem of finding the money. But it is looking at sources such as the Forest Heritage Fund.

Hard as it is to believe, it could be that with this little slice of our heritage, we've finally done it right.