night and day, walking

friday night, we go on the night walk. just ten people, we expected more. perhaps a lot of the walkers are locals who have already seen the forest at night.

a ten dollar donation to the local bird watchers association (or botanical association? that sounds more like it) and we're off. led by an ecologist.

we hear calls of local birds, an owl and something else. we see three small wallabies, a pest imported from Australia. various ferns and trees, all quite interesting.

but the highlight of the walk is glowworms. in the bushes. like white LEDs. makes up for missing the caves at te anau :-)

the guide refers to Maoris as "mo-are-ee", well, something like that. The Maori guide at hells gate referred to "mouldy, as in mouldy bread".

the night walk guide tells us that Maoris believe that their ancestors became hills and such. so when we climb a mountain we are stepping on great grandad's head. which causes some cultural conflict.

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saturday, a 10km walk.

it's reasonably flat, mostly through forest. lots of redwood forest. most nz forest is plantation. it's peaceful though with quite a few bmx bikes. in places -- amongst tall trees -- it feels very lord of the rings-ish.

we take about two and a half hours including a stop for a snack. distance turns out to be closer to 11km. so that's one "official" walk. with another walk tomorrow.

we go to town for iced coffee and banoffee cheesecake, very nice. then home. to do a load of washing and otherwise relax.

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the evening news has the nz pm announcing that nz is closed to visitors. (while australia is throwing money around because the pollies have no idea how to deal with a disease pandemic. please can we swap PMs?)

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We go to a hangi for dinner. a roomful of probably infected tourists. at a Maori arts and crafts centre -- I forget the name -- with a view of pohunu geyser. which does manage to shoot water just before we start eating.

it's supposed to be a hangi but there is no sign of hot stones, just a buffet. good food though :-)

we thought it was just dinner. we arrive... and there is noone in sight. we are lucky, a staff member on cigarette break shows us the after hours entrance. just us and three other people... till some sort of presentation ends and a couple of hundred people join us. a cultural presentation, no doubt, we are not sorry to have missed it.

there's a separate table of a dozen chinese tourists. not sure if they are special -- they have a host speaking chinese -- or in quarantine.

deb eats hangi meat, i eat fish and shellfish. all good.

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then home. feeling full, satisfied. 

spend some time worrying about auckland... will we drop the car at the airport or the city? take a bus or taxi from airport to city? how much walking can we avoid? not too worry. not till Tuesday, anyway...

now we rest, relax, write journal... and sleep.

Nick Lethbridge  /  consulting dexitroboper
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"The beautiful thing about learning is that nobody can take it away from you." … B.B. King
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