A few good lazy days around the area. Nothing too much of note. The massive hydrangea in the yard has sent up its first flower:
But nothing too crazy going on.
A couple beach visits, the first to Motupipi beach, both in an attempt so squeeze as much beach time in while we are in this lovely place, and to see if there was a closer place to collect pipis.
The beach is quite lovely, and had a few of these particular succulents growing near the sand. Does anyone know what they are? When we hiked in Portugal, they were EVERYWHERE. Here, probably because it's earlier in the season, they are quite green and lush. There, since it was late summer, they had all already sent up yellow flowers, and had begun to turn orange and brown.
There was a man on the beach setting up a kite surfing sail. It doesn't have any rigid members, rather, all the structure comes from inflatable ribs. Which makes sense, as you don't want it to break or sink when it hits the water. Which one would assume it would do so often while surfing.
We found out later that the man kite surfing is currently staying at Kiwiana. A very talkative fellow, but knows a lot about activities in the area. He suggested strongly that if we were going to rent mountain bikes (something we had been considering) that we should splurge and get full suspension, rather than front suspension only. This was not because the trails in the area need such hardy bikes, but rather that they were simply just that much nicer. We figured we'd probably take him up on that.
Wendy and Carol are cat people, and the cats love to peer down on us from the sun screen on the patio.
It's a bit hard to make out, but the iridescent blue and black bird with the white crest in the flax is a Tui. They are lovely birds with a lovely variety of very tonal songs. They are also mimics, and can be taught (or can learn) to mimic things like horns, sirens, or dog barks, too.
Evidently, the Maori idiom for complimenting a persons singing voice is to say, "They have the throat of a Tui."
The next day we visited Ligar Bay (which we visited a few weeks earlier). This time, it was at high tide, which means there is only a small sliver of sand right up by the road. While Molly jumped in, I simply passed out on the beach. Very nice.
Even though we only hiked about 4 hours the previous day, we slept like rocks for almost 10 hours in Wanui hut. In fact, we have been sleeping extraordinarily well in New Zealand. Must be something in the air.
We planned on hiking up the river, over the Wanui Saddle separating the River from the Downs, and then back to Takaka.
KORU!
Back in the Downs, in an area called Log City, for some reason.
We've decided that sheep are adorable, and I want a pet lamb now.
An example of a sink hole in the limestone. The Downs have hundreds of these. The fissures all lead to a stream bed outside of the downs
This one, in fact. This is Gorge Creek. After hiking around the Downs, we made a side trip to this over look and to Harwoods Hole. More on the hole later.
I was intrigued by the fractal nature of these rocks. Millions of them form the mountain we were standing on, but each one was also weathered and looked like a tiny mountain itself.
It's hard to get a good concept of it from the pictures, but the last set are all of the entrance to Harwood's Hole. It's a naturally occuring vertical shaft that's more than 550 feet deep. Originally, it was the drainage point for all of the downs! All the rain water had carved out this cavern, and would flow into it and out again through a small cave called Starlight Cave halfway down the mountain. Now, the water has carved hundreds of smaller tunnels that exit the mountains even further down that. Google images has some very impressive pictures of the inside, if you want to get the full experience.
Back around the other side of the Downs, for our return trip.
These last two pictures were taken less than 100 feet from each other. When you exit one sort of terrain and enter another around here, it's pretty abrupt.
She's a dork sometimes.
We reached the end of the Rameka Track, and started down the dirt road for our last 10 km hike to Takaka, when a very nice woman, Miranda, stopped her car and asked if we needed a ride. She is one of the few people who lives up at the top of the mountains, and figured we had already seen the nice parts by hiking. The rest was just road walking, and as no one else was going that way, she figured she'd ask. As with most parts of our journey, our policy is to just say yes. So instead of a 2 hour walk, we were home in 20 minutes. Quite nice, and we weren't exhausted before we went into town for a beer and fish and chips, which is becoming our post-camping meal of choice.
Another good camping trip done. Now, what to do next?
Unlike Kevin, we did get up at 5AM to watch the sunset from Castle Rocks, but it was still pretty from the relative warmth of the hut.
The sleeping arrangements.
The kitchen area, as it was.
Me rocking the wool socks and Birkenstocks look by the stove. I had found these super warm Smartwool Socks at the previous shelter. They were clean, too, and still smelled like laundry detergent. Pretty nice!
The hut as we left that morning.
And back up the same rooty trail as before.
Today we planned to be much shorter, only around 10km or so. We planned to hike back up to the Evans Ridge that we hiked down from to get to Castle Rocks, and then along the ridge, eventually cutting down into the Wanui River Valley. A short day, but we wanted to get to the Wanui Hut early enough to ensure we got a bunk, as it only has 4. (We didn't have to worry, really, we were the only ones there all night.)
This is the northern end of Moa Park. It's very reminiscent of the Gouland Downs on the Heaphy, and the only section of Abel we saw like that.
In the middle of Moa Park is a side trail leading to Porters Rock, the highest point on our hike at around 1050m above sea level. It was by far the most sweeping views of the area we've seen so far.
I love it when you can see mountains beyond mountains; not just the ranges border Nelson, but the peaks in the middle of those ranges, as well.
Along the ridge line I was followed by this guy:
Wekas are not shy at all.
As you can see, the Weka got within about 5 feet of me, and didn't startle at all when I moved. Only when I would yell or move towards it would it run away. But if followed pretty close for half a mile, and was joined by a few of its friends along the way. Only when we started down the mountain did it stop.
We arrive at the Wanui hut just after noon. Through out almost all of our journeys so far, whenever we reach our goal this early in the day, we would set a new goal and push on. Just this once, we decided, we would try just staying put, relaxing, and not pushing ourselves.
It was a lovely decision. We spent the rest of the day lounging by the Wanui River. This is the same river that feeds the Wanui Falls we visited earlier, at this point only a small stream bed.
We don't often take time to simply do nothing, and this was nice. We napped, collected firewood for the great fireplace in the hut, read the paper and some books (on kindles/smartphones), ate a relaxed dinner, and just generally enjoyed ourselves.
Even though the backcountry trails aren't as nice as the more maintained trails, the backcountry huts are lovely. They seem like often they are very rudimentary, but are quaint, sturdy, and after sleeping in tents in almost every backpacking trip I've done for the last 5 years, are quite nice compared to going to bed and waking up in a cold wet tent. They're also only $5 a night, which is a bargain after paying $14 a night per person to camp on the Heaphy Track.
The next day, we plan to hike back to Takaka, so to bed early, with a fire ready to light against the morning chill.
