tramping new zealand

Mooching.

Yeah, I had a couple of days just hanging around Oban with no big ambition.

Allowing healing to do its thing with my knee.

Well, that was my intention.

My previous day on Ulva Island totalled 17,000 steps, including climbing up and over the hill to Golden Bay both ways.

So, I wasn’t entirely static.

Today, in the afternoon, I wandered out to Ackers Point. Mostly on the asphalted road, although the last bit is on a beautiful crushed gravel DOC track, albeit with quite a few steps.

My knee coped well enough, but it was distance rather than intensity I was aiming at.

I stopped to talk to a 5th-generation local, although he hadn’t spent his whole life on the island. We just stood in the middle of the road and chatted for almost an hour. He had been cutting down rogue trees and was heading home with his chainsaw. Each car that went past, he said, “Oh, that’s my cousin.” Seemed he had a small, well-connected world.

We spoke about a few contentious topics. He believed the anti-1080 faction on Rakiura was vocal, but in reality, fairly small. We agreed that attempting to clear the island of bird predators seemed a hopeless task. I mentioned how difficult they found the eradication of rats/possums on Kapiti Island had been, eight years and $20 million spent, with 800 km of trapping tracks established, that covered less than 2,000 hectares.

Rakiura would be exponentially more difficult.

Also, he agreed with the kākāpō theory I was told about on the island a few years ago. Fifty-odd adult birds had been heading for London back in the 1800s, when the boat had to turn back to Bluff due to mechanical issues, and they released their flock on the coast north of Port Pegasus/Pikihatiti. That local was also his cousin.

The brief blue cod fishing trip I took back in 2008 was run by his uncle, and the skipper’s offsider owned the boat that had been beached at Leask Bay for a few years. Yeah, that guy was his cousin.

Eventually, I peeled off, concerned that once again I would be walking in the dark.

The next day, I went around to Horseshoe Bay, cracking out a similar number of steps on the rollercoaster road.

Might be overachieving on the rehab program.