Bluff, NZ
The following morning we packed up our backpacks and headed down to the ferry. The sea looked calm so I decided to try no drugs.
Big mistake! What was I thinking? I made it halfway before I needed the first barf bag. I was standing on the rail with a cold wind in my face and sea spray soaking my clothes and my mouth in a barf bag for the last half hour. The swells were big and that boat rocked and rolled. I felt awful. When we finally arrived in Oban I was drenched from my hair to my toes. My whole body was rebelling. My head throbbed. I felt like shit. Get me to the hostel, the tent up, and let me sleep. Poor April was left to entertain herself because I was out of commission. (No after photos.)
When I awoke a couple of hours later I felt better so we trudged around the small village. They had a little theater showing a film about Stewart Island. Let's go, says I. Another mistake. A movie about Stewart Island has water in it...and boats! I was sick all over again. To bed. That's the only thing that helps.
By morning I was a new woman and ready to hike.
This island is special for it's bird life, especially kiwis, the native bird to New Zealand. I've cycled a lot if this country, but this was my first tramp through the bush. OMG the ferns could swallow me whole they're so big. It really was like tramping through a movie set of Jurassic Park!
Our plan was to take two nights, three days to do the 33 km Rakiura Track, one of the Great Walks of NZ. We booked into the campsites which were near the huts with water collected from a cooking shelter roof into a tank, the cooking shelter and toilets. Our first site was on a beach and April dropped onto the beach to walk in. She was attacked by birds. Oyster Catchers. This couple had chicks and I saw them scurrying down the beach with the babies...not knowing they were fleeing April. Whew! She put her poles up to protect her head. They were a black bird with bright red beaks. A while later I strolled up the beach forgetting about the birds but in the direction away from their nests we'd been told and I look up to see this bright red beak coming straight at me like a dive bomber. I turned and ran! Now this bird is only the size of a small seagull. But he's serious!!
Then during the night when I was getting up to pee I notice a headlight by the shelter scanning all around. Then I see her mate go out of their tent and they have bright lights shining and flashes going off. They'd gotten their adult son up too. And I watched them scatter this way and that, like the keystone cops. So funny. I figured they'd spotted a kiwi but I felt protective of the bird and didn't want to get up and add to their trauma so I stayed in my tent. April slept through it all. Did I miss seeing a kiwi. Yes. Three of them. But I don't regret it. I feel we humans are so bent on saying we did something ("I saw a kiwi!") that we don't respect them. But I could have seen a kiwi:). And that will have to be enough. I watched Kiwis watching kiwis, I tell everyone!
The rest of the hike was pretty flat, uneventful, but with amazing scenery. We met 4 guys from Italy and a couple from Canada that had see us on the road biking. Several folks actually said they'd seen us.
This hike psyched us up for doing another Great Walk around Te Anau in Fiordland if we could figure out how to make that happen. It felt great to have backpacks on and be tramping. Hmm. Well have to research this.
So back to Bev and Bruce's to meet up with Adele and Andrew who arranged our bike accommodations in Bluff, and dinner, and a great sleep in the garden before heading north.
With access to a computer I researched the option of catching a bus to Te Anau. It was too far out of our way to bike. I remembered buses were difficult with my one trike before when I was here. I was very concerned about two. And they got even stricter. Maybe if we took 2 different buses? Only one a day? That won't work. Screw it. The Kepler Track isn't going to happen, April. I can't figure out how to get there.
This is Burt Monro's bike with which he set the land speed record in the Bonneville Salt Flats in 1967. Google this guy. Most interesting. And watch a great movie about him: "The World's Fastest Indian". Oh, by the way, this motorcycle and many other relics and old cars were in a great hardware store in Invercargill! Greet place to visit!
Livin' the life,
BagLady
Facebook: Kathryn Mossbrook Zimmerman
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