25 February 2007

Round the Beeches

The Mavora Walkway

Day 1 page 3 Greenstone to Taipo

We've been going just over three hours now, and I'm starting to think about a lunch and a bite to eat. I grab some biltong from my bag and a drink of water, and if I can't leap tall buildings in a single bound I think I can manage these.

It's down and up again, and again.

Another stream. Sometimes, instead of seeing just another barrier to cross, I like to stand in the middle of a stream for a minute or two and just listen to it's noise and watch the play of light off its water.

We pull up for lunch and a break. I'm delighted I'm going so well, and there's a faint sense something in me is changing with respect to the landscape - an increasing openness that is difficult to describe. Man has always imposed himself on his landscape, pushed it aside, changed it to suit him. This feels like allowing the landscape to make its reciprocal changes.

A fat black mushroom invites my camera down for a closer scrutiny.

Miranda is managing but her head hasn't properly cleared, and she's not eating much. I am keeping an eye on her but so far she's still faster than I am over the turf.

Mike and Carol move on ahead at a somewhat faster pace. We continue through familiar territory,

sometimes rougher....

Here, a bed of filmy ferns, Hymenophyllum, provide a perfect backdrop for some emerging larger fronds.

I thought these things only grew in garden centres

We seem to be gradually descending, and the boggy areas are becoming more frequent. Then we emerge into scrub.

Across the valley, the weather is still threatening, but our side is fine.

A little more bush, drier and more open, and more scrub.

My attention is captured by what I at first take for red flowers:

Somewhere along here we have just passed the saddle, pretty much unaware. Out there is the tarn filled by the Pond Burn and from here the streams are flowing in our direction

There's lots to look at

photo by miranda woodward

We're getting closer now to the flats and the ground is becoming increasingly boggy

Mostly it's firm enough underfoot to support us without troubles, but the small streamlets need watching. We're using our sticks to test ground firmness and out of idle curiosity Miranda probed a stream. The pole went down three feet. Not everywhere, but thought provoking.