22 February 2007

A Step Up

The Greenstone Track

page 4

We continue as before, but with a little more attention round our ankles.

This little fellow is becoming increasingly common along the edge of the track.

What I catch only just in time is a medium size nettle growing in the top of an old treestump nursery and reaching out at bare arm level. I call a warning to Miranda but not quite in time, and she gets a light brush across the back of her arm. We mention this casually to Ranger Matt later on and he heads out with a mattock to deal to it.

Rapunzel trees!

The roundwood nutter has a long reach, and as usual, where possible, trampers take a detour around his work.

Now and again we are rewarded with a look out to the tops.

We appear to have reached a boundary of some sort. DoC signs are a little like dogshit - they serve as territorial and ethical markers as much as they generate information. "Have you got your plastic bag for rubbish?"

That's one I like.

And here we are.

The view up top is rather lovely.

We dump packs, and I head down to an interesting looking suspension bridge.

I think DoC has just about perfected this design.

I've been on a few different models now, and this design, with shoulder-high hand wires and a netting surround is stable and provides a secure crossing. Wires from the side do much to prevent wobble or tipping. I loathe the ones that have a descending top wire that has my arms above my head to start with, and I'm crouching in the middle of the span where I'm least stable anyhow.

There is a problem, at the other end of this one, for the elderly and stout. There is a sharp right hand turn to negotiate, and this involves getting under the wire. It can't be done with your pack on, and removing gear at the end of the bridge is awkward.

I head back up to the hut where Miranda has a cup of tea organised, and some lunch. We have a lazy afternoon ahead of us and the hut pretty much to ourselves. Clouds are gathering ominously up the valley, but it will be evening before it starts to come down in earnest. Tomorrow is the big one, certainly as far as us elderly and stout persons are concerned, and believe me, I am concerned.

This hut probably boasts the gloomiest and smelliest long drops I've seen en route. The hut is an old one - one of the benches inside still has Forest Service markings - and the toilet design could be described as historical, or "pre-plastic" rather than contemporary. I suggest to Matt the ranger that a coat of white paint on the inside would improve visibility considerably, or they could be declared historic sites with special green and yellow signs, and new ones built to replace them.

Dinner is a dried mince that I have perfected at the risk of a certain monotony. I use beef and chicken for preference over pork and lamb, and vary the accompanying sauce - curry, sate, pasta etc. I find that even when I cut meat into small pieces it retains a certain leathery quality, so mince it is.

Miranda does wonders with dried vegetables and rice and mashed potatoes and stock cubes, and it certainly tastes fine. For a week I can cope with mince every night. (I cook and dry the rice ahead of time and it needs only boiled water poured over it and leaving for a few minutes to be ready.)

After dinner, the rain begins in earnest and continues heavy for most of the night. I wonder whether it will stop before morning or just keep on belting down. I wake up during the night and can't decide whether it's still rain I can hear or just a very full stream belting down the valley.