Early in the month we joined up with a group who were picking up rubbish around Deadman’s Island in the Waimea Inlet. This was part of the “big beach clean up” organised all around the country.  There was not a lot of rubbish collected but enough to fill a trailer anyway. It is surprising how people just drop their rubbish where ever they happen to be especially as they visit these wilder places and presumably enjoy them but leave such a mess. They remind me of little folk needing a bib during feeding time but I feel these people still need to wear a bib it seems. Maybe they should wear one if they get caught?

A Walk Up to Coppermine Saddle

The track just below the Coppermine Saddle.

Shirl on the bridge over the Maitai.

Soon after picking up the beach rubbish, Shirl and I headed up towards Coppermine Saddle, from the Maitai River and dam along the cycle and walk way. The old walk way track was like walking up a rocky stream bed in parts but the newish cycle track had made walking much easier although a little longer but easier grades. About this time of the year (the first week in November), Myosotis or Forget-me-nots, are flowering around the saddle and nearby. This species is confined to the Eastern Mountains of Nelson and mainly on the mineral belt and we wondered how they survived the harsh cold winter winds and snow.

After a steady climb through the mineral belt, we could see the saddle ahead and the track zig-zagging its way to the top. On our way was  spotted some spider orchids growing on a bank, some common grass orchids and several of the greenish flowering native clematis in flower, growing strongly, when we passed through a recovering burnt area. The black wooded remains of kanuka scrub starkly reaching for the sky contrasted with the recovering plant life.  After death there is life – but sometimes in a new form.

A Spider Orchid.

Once up on the saddle we soon sort out a sheltered spot to have lunch as the wind was really cold.  We had visited the area the year before and had hardly found any of the for-get-me-nots let alone any flowering, but this time it was different. The more one looked the more that were sighted and in flower too. The old story with this type of spotting; at first despite looking hard, one just found the odd one and then, once the eyes get tuned in, they seemed to be where ever one looked. In fact one suddenly had a guilt feeling when walking around in case a fragile plant was stood on. The area is nearly all rock and these plants grow in the broken small pieces, a sort of scree and just how they survive in this barren environment is really

Gentianella (I think) on Coppermine Saddle.

surprising. There were other plants in flower too with a small, hardly noticeable little plant, seemingly just placed among the scree and very hard to see, which I think might have been Gentianella divisa. No spectacular colours but quite amazing that they can even grow in such a hostile place.   The colour of the Dunite rocks is very photogenic.  On the way down Shirl disturbed a red deer on the track too.

Dun Mt rocks.

A Housing Crisis On The Way?

There is a lot of talk about child poverty but I didn’t know children lived on their own. A better term would be parent irresponsibility I would have thought.  However, has anyone spared a thought of the pukeko’s (swamp hen) who live on land nearby? No doubt it was a swampy area and then came humans. An orchard it was. Then came pet cats and dogs and with all this harassment, it’s a wonder that any survived. But now it is to be all houses and the pukeko are being pushed out with no home to go to, but no-one cares. Some will even be pleased. It is a native bird and normally protected so it is okay to destroy their home but not okay to kill them.

A Visit to Dehra Doon

Dehra Doon summit.

This was with our walking group, over farmland and along a 4×4 farm road or track, at that. We practically followed a ridge that climbed about 300 metres or so and then followed the up and down ridge until we came to an old airstrip. Here we had lunch. It is a grass airstrip used for top dressing (manuring) the grass areas on these hilly slopes but not now it seems. The bunker type structure that stored the manure was all forlorn even to the extent of an old BBQ stand rusting in one corner. At least it was out of the wind. And it was strong and forceful, pushing us on our way back. The view looking down on the flats of Riwaka with its patchwork of orchards of various fruits and vines, stretching out to the coast looked nice and orderly while to main road over the Takaka Hill wound its way, painfully it seemed, along the side of ‘the hill’.

Stockyard railing.

Passing through Motueka on the way home we had a compulsory stop at Toad Hall  for an ice cream. The bit of a yarn we had was just about as good as the ice cream.

Something Sinister is going On?

Just recently, on television, newspapers and radio, New Zealanders are being renamed Kiwi’s. Really, this is just a nickname and usually used when overseas but now these people are trying to get it into general use. It’s better than being called a ‘non’ I guess. I suppose the country will be known as Aotearoa only in the future and being called an Aotearoan or maybe a Aotearoa-ite doesn’t sound much so are we being softened up for a change? It’s a bit ironic since we ‘Kiwis’ have almost killed off the real Kiwis. Maybe that’s it? Kiwi’s won’t be extinct after all?

October rainfall at our place was 44mm which was a fair bit less than our October average of 154mm and less than the 93mm that fell during last year’s October.