Stop press!
My dad has identified the gulls in the North to South blog as Black Billed Gulls and the fantail as a grey fantail in Australia (and it’s called pied Fantail in New Zealand!)
The weather has been a little mixed and yesterday I had a day where where I visited the small tourist town of Geraldine and then Ashburton. As I’m not really a lover of towns or shopping they didn’t hold my interest for long. I really wanted to see the items made from Merino wool and Possom fur. While it was gorgeous wool it was dreadfully expensive. I found some knitting wool but again too expensive for me, I could probably afford to make one glove…for a hobbit!
The only other thing, and it made me laugh out loud was a sign inviting people to Geraldine’s Pig and Possum hunt! Only in New Zealand!
Today the clouds lifted, the waters had receded (I decided I would give the Snail the day off) and I would walk the Rakaia Gorge walkway. It was a 4 hour walk, there are a few steep bits and one stream to ford but overall fairly easy going.
I had the walk to myself for the first two hours. Someone had been clearing the path of vegetation. I wondered if I was going to meet a machete wielding bushman at some point as it all looked freshly cut.
There are a good deal of introduce plants on this walk, gorse and sycamores being the most obvious. The native New Zealand Cabbage was common too.
These plants were used by early settlers as chimneys due to the fact that when the stems are hollowed out the interior will not burn. The dry leaves do burn really well. The Maori also used the plant as a food source.
The track had a few stunning view points looking across the river.
I took a little diversion to look at some old coal mines, the Snowdon Mines. The little dark caves surrounded by ferns looked like the seven dwarves might come out singing “Hi Ho” at any moment.
I also took a diversion down to the river and this was quite sobering, I could see the level the river had been the day before, at least another 4 feet higher. How quickly the levels change. I didn’t linger as I could see rain in the mountains and that could well mean another torrent anytime soon!
At the zenith of the walk I met two women who were walking the opposite loop to me. We chatted and had our lunch together before I set off again.
By now there were a number of people on the trail. I keep meeting people from Switzerland for some reason.
I saw the little fantails again but this time saw a black one. I looked it up and its a variant on the pied fantail. I also saw a number of silver eyes. I heard a lot of songs I couldn’t identify sadly.
I really enjoyed my walk, I’m back to full fitness I think, what a relief!
The Travelling Bee 