27 February 2007

A Ridge Too Far...

The Mavora Walkway

Day 3 page 1 Taipo to Boundary

I stick my head out shortly after 7. It's looking good, but I wonder how hot that will be before we get there.

Miranda is feeling a lot better, but still pretty fragile. She manages about two spoons of muesli and a cup of tea. We decide to get going as soon as we can, and get as much value out of the cooler hours as possible.

I head out across the bridge first and get the camera out to catch Miranda. She does a wobble dance in the middle to throw my focus but I get her just before she starts it.

Just a bit of silliness but it lifts us both.

We look back as the morning sun catches the long gentle slopes of the mountain behind the hut.

Now, where's that pole

That doesn't look like a superhighway

Here's our first biggish stream

photo by miranda woodward

Across that and there's a wall of matagouri to deal with. Funny, I'd just been telling myself we's seen hardly any of it this trip.

That's more like it.

As Rex Fairburn might have written in another day and another time:

Roaming the flats in the morning light
Seeing the paradise duck there
Can't think of a rhyme for duck right now
But we did have a nice cup of tea there.

Paradise duck? Well, this is paradise, isn't it.

This I could cope with all day.

However, our time in paradise is limited.

Up ahead we can see a series of terraces, and it looks like we are heading in that direction.

One of the things that defines the South Island for me is these crystal streams. Three years ago when the Heaphy flooded we did not get muddy water, just deeper water. Like Tennyson we shall dip into the future a little and show you what a didymo infected stream further down the valley looks like:

Rock snot. Coming to a river near you.

Latest word is that they have discovered a native insect that eats didymo, and are currently researching it's impact on other stream-life.