23 February 2007

A Step Up

The Greenstone Track

Day 2, Page 4

Knee supports... My friends Felicity and John are great believers in prophylactic measures and swear by them. My preference is to have them along and use them on rough country, or at the first sign of a twinge. I'm not sure that using them all the time in fact helps to build muscle strength where it's needed. Though you could say the same for hiking poles, and I'd sooner tramp naked than without those.

What Miranda does notice, however, with socks, skin, knee supports, skin and shorts is a series of distinct suntan lines.

More little treasures

Up into the scrub again. I don't know why, but it seems to me that this is the worst kind of territory to face a hot day in. The scrub seems to hold and radiate the heat much more than the valley floor.

It's getting on for 1 pm, there's no obvious shade and we're beginning to think a lunch break is a good idea. There's no obviously picturesque stopping place, so we find a slightly larger piece of scrub that is shading the path and get out the thermos and the crackers and cheese and salami. And the honey and peanut butter. How the hell we lose weight on these expeditions I sometimes wonder.

There's an old tramping proverb that the best place to stop for lunch is generally two corners further on from the place you do stop at.

Shortly after this we meet a fisheries ranger who reckons we're only an hour or so from the Greenstone hut. I tell him how long it's taken so far, a bit over five hours. He has a think and reckons two hours. Closer to four, fatman time.

We're moving into the gorge section of the valley, and the track takes off uphill.

We come to a fence. There are fences here and there and quite incongruous they look at times. Stiles of this design have a tendency to wobble when large persons climb aboard.

We keep climbing.

Over to the right we can see the gorge.

And there in front of us are the huts. The nearer one is used by the guided walks group, and the far one by the bush is the old Mid-Greenstone hut, now used by the Deerstalkers. It's not a bad distance from McKellar at all, and I could quite cheerfully put my pack down, and even more cheerfully if I had taken an extra hour and enjoyed the walk at greater leisure. Onwards. Miles to go before I sleep, and all that.

Here is a small-leaved coprosma with lemon berries. More research to do on these.

Here's another scrubby little fellow I have yet to name. Shows you just how foreign an alpine/sub-alpine environment can be to someone more used to the Waitakeres.

And some more small white flowers, a whole constellation of them.