November 15th, 2019
After the Air Force Museum yesterday I headed south and
stayed a night in Timaru, a small city of 29,000 people. It was a nice, small parking lot by the ocean
although I was disturbed by the noise of a local in his car playing some loud
music at 2am but that is to be expected at these urban freedom camping spots. The next day I headed further south, through
a smaller town called Oamaru (all these Maori names…I like it but don’t always
know how to pronounce them although this one was easy). Continuing on I headed to Herbert Forest to
go for a hike. I had read that there
were some old growth trees in this forest and that you’d get a glimpse of what
a lot of the east coast of the south island used to look like before Europeans
settled there, razed the land and starting ranching sheep and cattle.
I arrived around noon and the map stated that the big loop
would take 4½ hours. Hmm…maybe that’s a
bit much. There was a 1½ hour “Swallow’s
Track” that did a section of the big loop so I started with that. I was shocked that within 20 minutes I was
halfway through that circuit. Hmm…maybe I’ll
press on, there’s mention of a waterfall so maybe I’ll hit that then backtrack. Perhaps I got it wrong, but it looked like
the waterfall in question was all of a foot and a half high. Again, it hadn’t taken me long to get there either
so I decided to press on.
The trail snaked along a little creek and even though it was
a sunny day it was cool and shaded so I hardly broke a sweat even though I was
hiking at a moderate pace. It seemed to
be a temperate rainforest with ferns and lots of other vegetation. I decided I was all in, let’s do the big loop.
Halfway through, which only took me an hour and a half, the
trail spilled onto a logging road for a bit.
The view wasn’t as pretty as part of it was clear-cut. At the trailhead for the next section, there
was a warning that there was a 5 meter ladder on this trail. Oh no!
A 5 meter ladder, sound scary…
The next section had more of a coniferous forest feel to it but it was
still lovely. The whole hike birds were
singing and chirping away, can’t blame them, what a paradise for them.
The scary 5 meter ladder:
The waterfall beside the ladder:
The last section broke back out onto a road and it looked
like this area had just recently been logged.
What a contrast. The lovely forest
to this devasted land. What we humans
do. I hope and assume that they replant
trees here as we do in Canada . Doing a
quick search on the Internet they are doing it, but they are having a toughtime finding tree planters.
In the end it took me 3 hours to do the big loop. I definitely enjoyed the hike but I wish they
would put scales on the maps. So far all
maps I’ve seen for hikes just tell you how long it will take. Well come on, everyone goes at a different pace. All in all, though, a lovely afternoon.
I headed to a freedom campsite by the beach but the wind was
just blasting, even though the spot was behind a big dune. I hadn’t noticed any wind as I left Herbert
Forest so I took a look on CamperMate and opted to go for a New Zealand
government campground which usually costs $8 per person. As I pulled in, I noticed a group of young
locals, in their early 20s, and the party was already on. Hmm…that kinda ruins the atmosphere but I
somewhat lucked out and found a spot the other side of some bushes, about as
far away as I could get from them and decided it would do for the night. There was a lovely little river nearby so I was
able to wash and sooth my feet after the hike.
I met a nice German couple, Leo and Fabia, and we played some cards
later that evening which was fun.
The lovely river:
Oh hello Kingfisher...we meet again! This one tastes much better than the ones in India as it is brewed in Australia.
Sounds like a nice day!
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