Paths are well marked in NZ and, following on from the theme of the last post, walking is definitely 'experiencing' if only at a wimpy level. So we set off for a casual stroll, through Coromandel Town onto a path which would give a clear view of the bay.
The first thing you notice in a NZ wood is the noise. There are tickings, whistles, rustles and what are almost certainly chompings. Every tree is covered by things either eating it or eating the things that eat it. It formed a constant backdrop until we emerged at the viewpoint.
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| Coromandel Bay |
One thing we'd seen many of, and would see every fifty yards or so for the rest of the walk, were traps. Maoris called NZ "The Island of Birds" - when they arrived there were no land mammals (except two sorts of bat). Lots were later introduced, some generally seen as benign (eg the hedghog), other as pests: rabbits, rats, possums etc. Stoats were introduced to reduce the rabbit population but succeeded in decimating bird species by eating their eggs.
The traps we saw were aimed at rats and stoats and were obviously part of a drive to get children involved in pest control. The basic argument was rats and stoats eat kiwi eggs and kiwi are the endangered national bird. Eight year olds painted "we love kiwis" or "kill all rats" on the traps and added bait - often eggs (chicken I assume), sometimes unidentifiable bits (meat?) and sometimes what looked like torn up plastic bags. None that we saw contained either rats or stoats.
As we climbed the first hill we could also see evidence of NZ's gelogical instability. The photo shows a layer of sea shells about a foot below the land surface and about 100 feet above the current sea level.
Virtually none of the plant life was familiar except blackberries and thistles - both presumably invaders. We continued to climb though denser woods, at some point transferring, unknowingly from a 'day' to a 'bush' path. Day paths are easy walking, vegetation gets trimmed back, there may be a gravel surface, they may even be wheel chair friendly. A bush path is anything else.
The path got steeper and muddier. I think New Zealanders like corrugated iron because it reminds them of their country - up and down. It wasn't completely wild. Some of the rises and falls had flights of steps. The longest run I counted was over 100 steps. At the bottom, turning a corner you saw another flight going up again, and then, and then, .....
Eventually they stopped, we were as high as we could be, clear of woodland for a few moments. It started to rain, good steady NZ rain which continued for the next hour. No more steps though, just slithering and sliding up and down muddy slopes, across a causeway in a mangrove swamp, up a mud slope with, fortunately, a rope to hang onto ... part of the way.
The last obstacle was a stream with stepping stones. We nearly crossed successfully but were by then too tired and muddied to care. We walked back to town dripping water and mud. A Maori lady smiled and said "Hello" so we were recognisably human I guess.
We travel with only cabin luggage and now everything was wet and dirty. It all went into the campsite's big washer and then drier while we sat in our van wrapped in the big faux fur bankets which came with it for just such occasions.
"People say that life is the thing, but I prefer reading", said Logan Pearsall Smith. At the moment I tend to agree, especially sitting here in my furry comfort blanket.
NZ is all about experiencing stuff. Look in any brochure: you can white water raft across rapids, climb into the caldera of an active volcano, swim with dolphins, paddle a Maori canoe, attach rubber bands to your ankles and jump off bridges. I'm told the current younger generation is all about doing things; the previous younger generation which wanted to own things have been retired. Now it's, "Been there, done that, but don't want the teeshirt".
Eleanor and I are more of the looking at, talking about, thinking about but not needing to risk (or pretend to) life and limb. You can paddle a tiny boat into and underwater cavern to see glow worms, or like us you can stroll below an a bridge, move aside the ferns and also see glow worms. How boring we're becoming. So we decided to experience something. Which in our case usually starts with a meal.
Driving Creek Cafe would fit very easily into St Werburghs, vegan/veggie organic everything, with a quote by the Dalai Lama on one wall and a poem by Janet Frame on another. It's facebook page shows it better than I can; it's Trip Advisor's top eating spot in Coromandel but that's a bit unfair - it just totally different.
Here's a house sparrow helping us out with the chocolate cake - no longer so common in the UK but everywhere in NZ.
Fifty yards down the road is Driving Creek Railway. Forget train spotters muttering about gauges, 2-4-2 engines, left flanging widgets and all that stuff. This is an art work that took a life time to create. Barry Brickell was a potter and potters need clay so he bought a small bush covered hill of the stuff (about 60 acres for NZ$ 8000). To fire pots you need fuel and bush provides wood for that as well. If, in addition, you want to conserve NZ's unique flora you can have the extra satisfaction of cutting down invaders (e.g American pine), firing your pots with them and then replanting with indigenous trees.
To make this possible, Barry built a railway, laying all the track himself. Here is a film of the very early days. His and other pots and artworks decorate it. The decorative bricks are made of local clay, fired in kilns made of bricks fired from the same clay and fueled by wood from the site. I can't compete with a few photos but look on youtube to see what it's like now.
Barry died a couple of years ago and is buried beside the track.
And I made a small friend:
I'm not sure where it came from but I think it wanted protection As soon as I saw it, so did others and they started snapping. I encouraged it onto my hand so lots of pople got good pictures ... except me who couldn't take a photo because I was too close. Afterwards I put it down safely away from all the feet!
You don't often see the Milky Way in England, too much light pollution, but in the NZ countryside the stars seem more and brighter. Even on the edge of Russell you can see the Milky Way but I have poor visual/spacial awareness and am disconcerted by an upside down Orion. Once you get him you have the Seven Sisters, Taurus, Sirius and Andromeda - but in NZ I don't.
Any way up, the Milky Way is a wonderful sight. Hard to photograph so instead here's Henry Vaughan lines which almost do it justice:
I saw Eternity the other night,
Like a great ring of pure and endless light,
All calm, as it was bright;
We leave Russell the next day driving towards Dargaville through long stretches of agricultural (cattle) countryside and single street towns with old fashioned looking signs over shops very different from those in chic Russell. One town, whose name I forget, advertises itself as having Hundertwasser Public Toilets. I'm afraid we didn't stop to try them. What the locals probably don't notice is that their shop signage makes an equally colourful picture.
The weather (day time temperature is rarely below 16°) and the space, contribute to the presence of many makeshift homesteads scattered beside county roads. A rainbow painted bus with a couple of sagging awnings can be a home, a couple of containers with windows cut out or just a few straggling tents. There are some small communities comprising little more than a collapsing wooden shack leaning against an old coach, with canvas draped over its edges along with a few sheets of rusty corrugated iron. This would all be unimaginable in England though I suspect only because of the scarcity of land (and the weather).
Further south the land begins to resemble, to some degree, how the Lake District would look if the hills were allowed to spread themselves more generously across the land. A hundred mile square Lakeland perhaps. Though similarities mask differences: the trees growing on the slopes are usually impenetrable bush which would require machetes and chain saws to cut through. Also you don't get many tree ferns in Cumbria.
In the midst of this we suddenly find ourselves next to Hokianga Harbour with it's beautiful blue water and vast sand dunes.
The small boy in the picture just happened to be there - I didn't bribe him, honest! Perhaps he is the dolphin boy; the hamlet where we stopped had, at one time, a friendly dolphin which formed a particularly close relationship with a local child. It seemed so significant that a statue was erected to commemorate the pair. Later the statue was moved from the roadside to a local museum and a replacement statue put by the road. Oddly the original child was a girl, the replacement statue shows a boy. Make of that what you will.
Here is the big tree I mentioned earlier. Kauri wood is massively protected - to see the tree you must first wipe your feet and then spray them with disinfectant. The picture doesn't show the scale of Tane Mahuta, it is wider than a bus, over 50 metres high and perhaps 2000 years old.
And then we stop at a new site. Walking down the road we meet a woman picking blackberries. (remember it's autumn here). When it gets dark we also scour the hedgerows, not for blackberries though: beneath a bridge, under damp ferns we find our own small Milky Way -several dozen glow worms shining brightly.
Not quite Vaughan's style but I'll echo W H Davies (with a bit of a bodge)
What is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stop and stare?
...
No time to see, .....
Streams full of stars, like skies at night.
