Nature day

The problem I am finding with locating a guided walk to go on.....is that no-one does walks for 1 person. And there don't seem to be any open group walks that I can just tag along with.  So on to plan B.  The very helpful lady in the information site in Twizel provided me with a selection of well marked walking tracks that she was adamant would be safe for me to walk alone but also interesting & challenging.  She wasn't wrong :-)

I decided to walk up a track called Freehold Creek (the track ran up the side of the creek and occasionally crossed over it).  I started off full of enthusiasm and energy - finally, I was going to get to a top of some description on my own two feet.  Several hours later, I was humbled.  I had climbed solidly & steeply for 3 hours.  I was out of the forest and well into the bush.  But I could see that reaching any kind of top was just not going to be possible on a 1 day walk - the scenery is just too big!!

That's not to say it wasn't an absolutely stunning walk in it's own right.  The first few hours of track were through a beech forest, home to some allegedly rare (although there was no shortage of it around) mistletoe.  The creek was babbling away to the side, and when I got out over the bushline, I discovered that some thoughtful person had left refreshment for any thirsty walkers.

I carried on climbing for another 45 minutes or so until I reached a nice plateau with some stunning views, then turned round and got home in a depressingly (or reassuringly) shorter amount of time than it had taken me to walk up.

There was plenty of nature about today.  Now I'm not a bird person in general, but I can at least recognise the call of a lark when it is singing.  And when a small bird landed on a branch literally in front of my eyes, I knew enough to know that I hadn't seen one of these birds before.  I didn't have time to get the camera lined up for a shot, but memory and google suggest that what I saw was a Piwakawaka (and once you have googled this to get the picture, you will understand why I remember the bird so distinctly).

Finally, on the way back I heard this bird call repeated over and over and over.  I could never see the culprit, and google is not offering much help.  Does anyone know what bird this is?  I just hope it's not something I ought to know....

I'm now in Queenstown - not stopping for long but want to get some things booked up a few days in advance.  Still deciding what to do over the weekend - I have a hankering for a wine tour as the Pinot Noir region is right here.  Or I could head over to Invercargill or the Caitlins.  Time to do some reading up, methinks, before making the decision :-)