10 April 2008

Swanson Pipeline Track

page 4

Not far now ...

However, possibly the most difficult section of track still lies ahead.

The pipeline relative to the track is increasingly above it.

Within a short distance we are descending steps beside a tall abutment

to a plank bridge at the bottom

and here begins a steep set of stairs indeed

and a long one. Some of these steps are badly awry, and take some managing.

We carry on up

and up

and up

until finally the steps cease and we have about 100 metres of uphill slope to complete.

The words "lunch" and "coffee" start repeating themselves in my consciousness.

We reach the top of the slope and a sign points us off to the left down what looks like a tiny side track, while what looks like the main track heads straight on. You may notice that even after all these steps and ujphill trudging, we are now told this side track will take us ten minutes to get there, when ten minutes ago the sign said five minutes. They were both wrong!

I decidce to head straight on just in case the other is a scenic detour which right now I am not interested in.

In a minute or two, we reach a large pond and the works depot is just beyond

Possibly a good idea to steer the public clear of this. It's a bit like a"Wet Paint" sign. Water lilies seem to like it.

We walk on up past the depopt, and around to the left. About a hundred metres on is Christian Rd.

We head on out to a ferocious outburst of barking from two miniscule terriers on leashes who lay down a challenge in noble terms. Alice sits down about 2 metres away from them and watches with intest while I chat to their owner.

We have ourselves some lunch and some coffee, and head back around the scenic route. It's OK but no big deal.

We weave in and out of trees and across a boardwalk or two

passing a young and very healthy looking puriri

and a huge rimu with rata hanging off it

and we're back on the main track again to the van.