A Trot up the Fox

This photo shows an incredibly  life like cut out of a DOC ranger (a guy Jo use to work with!) He is indicating not to go any further as river levels can change rapidly, particularly during and after heavy rain and the entire river bed can become completely covered with flood water. Over the years, people have ignored the signs to their peril. 
Ice collapse and rock fall can occur at any time at the terminal face of the glacier, a cold down-draft off the glacier is normal in the valley, and rainstorms occasionally catch visitors (and the odd local!) by surprise. It's always a good idea to take an extra layer and a raincoat even if you don't think you will need it.

'Flower of the Dawn' Lake Mapourika, Westland National Park

A few kilometres from our place, Lake Mapourika is my haunt. Every day, no matter the weather, I bike and swim there. Because the water is the colour of tea from the tannins from the dense bush around the lake, it gets lovely and warm.

14,000 years ago this kettle lake was formed when a large block of ice was left behind by the retreating Franz Josef Glacier.

Our birders are in for a treat because they may get to see the rare crested grebe, scaup, grey duck, mallard duck, black swan, white-throated shag, white-faced heron, kingfisher, kereru, tui, bellbird, tomtit, grey warbler, brown creeper, silvereye, bellbird and robin.

Canavans Walk

Walking along the stopbank to get to Canavans

An oldy but a goodie, one of our favourite walks is Canavans Knob, a short distance from Franz Josef. We wander up through the forest to enjoy a grove of rata trees at the top of the granite outcrop, the sea and river to one side, and up the Waiho River to the glacier and Southern Alps Kā Tiritiri o te Moana from the seat at the top. 

View from the top

Melodious Wild Music in our Garden

Bellbird have come to our garden to feast on the fushia flowers, heralding the arrival of spring.
The bellbird was undoubtedly the chief performer in the chorus described by Joseph Banks when Captain Cook entered Queen Charlotte Sound during the first voyage of discovery. 

"I was awakened by the singing of the birds ashore, from whence we are distant not a quarter of a mile. Their numbers were certainly very great. They seemed to almost strain their throats with emulation, and made perhaps the most melodious wild music I have ever heard, almost imitating small bells but with the most tunable silver imaginable."

Heaphy Track, winter wonderland

Having secured a 'grab a fare' cheap seat in the plane from Christchurch to Hokitika weeks beforehand, getting the right weather for a tramp was in the lap of the gods. Unbelievble but sometimes you get lucky! 

We have both been on the Heaphy Track, when Jo was carrying out possum control, but that was many years ago and we wanted to return. DOC have spent 2 million on beautiful huts, tracks and bridges. The walk is located in Kahurangi National Park at the north-west corner of the South Island. A loose translation for Kahurangi is: ”treasured possession” and with its massive rivers, beech forest, northern rata with nikau palms, and alpine shrubs in the Gouland Downs.

A Great Walk, The Heaphy Track

Travels to Laos and Sri Lanka

                   

Below is a link to our latest travel blog. We were at mums place on Saturday, due to fly out to Nepal when we watched the news unfolding about the earthquake in Nepal. We hastily put together some new plans all the time feeling great relief we weren't amidst the devastation as well as great sadness for the Nepalese.

Travels in Asia    follow this link to our new blog  J' s trek 

A Great Year for Flowering Rata Vines on the 5 Mile Track, Okarito

The forests of South Westland are unique to the area due to the effects of glaciation 12-20 thousand years ago. Throughout the rest of the South Island, forests are predominantly beech trees. On the West Coast there is a distinctive “beech gap”, where beech trees have failed to re-colonise after the forest was removed during the ice age, and  glaciers covered all the land down to the sea-shore. After the glaciers receded this land was recolonised by tree species that had their seeds spread by birds or wind, unlike the beech which seeds are spread by gravity or water.

One of the more noticeable tree species occupying the “beech gap” is the southern rata, related to the northern pohutakawa, and the iron woods of the pacific region. Rata trees cover the mountain sides around Franz Josef and display a profusion of red flowers in January and February. Bee keepers exploit this profusion of nectar bearing flowers by positioning bee hives near the rata forests. Stacked bee hive boxes lie alongside the road like mini condominiums. Rata honey has a distinctive earthy smell.

Unfortunately rata trees are a highly desired food source for the introduced pest, the Australian brush tailed possum. A cat sized marsupial, possums were introduced into New Zealand to establish a fur trade, and have become a major environmental pest. You may see these animals as road kill, distinctive with the curled black tail and red or grey fur. Possums strip the flowers and leaves of the large rata trees and eventually kill them by long term defoliation, leading to the collapse of the forest canopy and its replacement with less palatable shrubs.

In an effort to protect the rata forests and their associated ecosystem, the Department of Conservation (DOC) conducts periodic possum culling operations, using poison baits dropped over the forests by helicopter. 

The Waiho Loop Walk

Peters Pool left by the retreating glacier, dropping a chunk of melted ice forming a kettle lake

One of our favourite walks in Westland Tai Poutini National Park over easy trails with ancient glacial landforms. On a good day the reflections are of the glacier, the Fritz Range including Mt Moltke and Mt Roon.

This has been a great year for the flowering rata trees

The track through forest

Interpretation panels and a wheel to hear the different bird songs

The Douglas bridge

Return to Ribbonwood

View from the village

Up to the Glacier Valley

The church by the river

Some lovely scenes from our place as we get out and about to explore.  It is great to be home again. After the construction site that Christchurch has become, the air seems sweeter than ever.

From painting Greedy Cat with my new entrant class to painting our house, slap it on!

Greedy Cat Paintings

During the winter I have been teaching five year olds in Christchurch. We have been doing lots of beautiful painting in class as a follow up to reading stories.
During the holidays it was great coming home to the builders handy work in the Bauman Glacier room with a new ranch slider out onto a large deck making the room so much lighter and a new living area for guests to enjoy.

Now we have painted over the yellow and red feature wall as we learned red is far too busy a colour for those wanting a peaceful nights sleep!

Waiho room gets a makeover

Jo is bent over prep'ing for painting laying masking tape. Next we will attack the Waiho room with a rather lovely sounding colour 'periglacial blue.' Never a dull moment at Ribbonwood. :-)

Bauman Glacier room gets a totally new look with a ranch slider and deck

Okarito

One of our favourite walks at Okarito is the Trig walk, which starts at the carpark and climbs up to a great vantage point overlooking the lagoons, forests and mountains of Westland National Park. It was originally used as a reference point for early trigonometric surveys to map the area, hence the name. The surveyors used theodolites to measure the bearing and angle of various other reference points and were able to calculate the height of the mountains with amazing accuracy, considering the equipment they used. No such thing as a GPS or even stereo aerial photo back then The platform there is a great place to have a picnic and look out to the Southern Alps including our highest mountains, Cook and Tasman. Both the Okarito and Three Mile lagoons are also visible from the trig. In the early days of the Okarito Brown Kiwi (Rowi) program conservation staff used to survey kiwi from there using radio receivers tuned to a transmitter on the kiwi. Now most of this work is done remotely with an aircraft, yet  another example of technology making our work easy.

Highly Recommended new tour in the area: 'Exposed'

With the earthquakes in Christchurch there has been heightened interest in the Alpine Fault, which is the biggest and baddest fault in the country. It is actually the boundary between the Pacific and Australasian tectonic plates and part of the Pacific ring of fire that takes in seismically active places like Japan, Peru and California. The Alpine fault runs along the western side of the Southern Alps, coming ashore near Milford Sound and running north towards the middle of the south island where it branches and veers across toward Kaikoura. In early 2011 scientists drilled a couple of bore holes down through the fault to collect rock samples and install monitoring instruments. They chose Gaunt Creek south of Whataroa as this site provided good access for the drilling rig. 

Subsequent to this drilling, a local family started running tours to the site where you can stand with one foot on each tectonic plate. The boundary itself is identified by a column or wall of strange green rock, called appropriately cataclismite, which is produced deep in the fault by the pressure and heat generated in the fault.

We found this to be a unique and fascinating activity.

Albatross Tour, Kaikoura

There were other highlights in 2013 - Kaikoura is a beautiful place that it would be wise to factor into your journey. The albatross tour (we saw first hand) and swimming with the dolphins (highly recommended by guests) are run by the same company. We loved it - great guide and boat, a wonderful service.

I wasn't actually patting it!

NZ fur seals, so many of them!

Wandering Albatross

Fighting for a feed

A thrill to see Orca!

Beautiful Kaikoura

Highlights of 2013

My class of New Entrants 2013

Travels through Asia

Living the dream at Ribbonwood

                     It is a little late to be discussing 2013, but I have just had a moment to reflect!

Eggs from Mill Cottage

We love collecting our fresh eggs from Norma and Merv who live in Mill Cottage just south of Hokitika. The eggs are big, fresh and choice. Guests often comment on the great flavour and orange yolks.
The two are great company and we enjoy catching up on the gossip and latest happenings in the area. With great pounamu (greenstone), coffee, natural beauty and history, Hokitika is an interesting break along the way.

Asian Antics, our latest blog

Our latest adventures captured on our blog   Asian Antics -  SE Asian Travels

Getaway to Wanaka

We all loved Uncle Murdoch, a generous soul. He was one of the first pioneer farmers in the area.

Rob Roy Glacier 

Scenic drive up the Matukituki Valley

Lunch at Rob Roy view point

Mt Aspiring National Park with the peak of
Mt Aspiring

My ancestors who came to the area from Scotland

The cemetery where many of my relations lie

Uncle Murdoch's shelter

Cycling from Wanaka to Hawea - a great trail