Walking round Methven 28 February 2015

We decide to go away for the w/e and book ourselves a double room in a snow-boarding backpackers place in Methven. The fences around the garden were made of upright snow boards, quite effective really, and it was run by a young sporty guy. The place was pretty empty because of course, it being Summer, we're out of season. Methven has a really good but tiny Japanese restaurant where we eat both nights of our stay. It's next door to an equally tiny cinema where we see the Second Best Marigold Hotel.

Mt Sunday, known by Lord of the Rings fans as Edoras, is the central hill in front of the high mountains. Makes for a pleasant stroll, but to get to this spot we have to drive down a very long gravel road. As we're leaving 2 huge coach loads of tourists arrive doing the Lord of the Rings trip. You have to imagine the elven castle on top of the hill, there's certainly no sign it was ever there, except maybe for a small gold rock painting of a unicorn

Over the swing bridge towards Mt Sunday

Looking up the valley from the top of the hill, the highest mountains are still cloud covered . . .

. . . and looking back the other way down the valley



Our next stop is Lake Heron where we track down this kettle hole. Kettle holes are small depressions left as glacial ice retreated from the area. This one's quite large and is covered in white gentians

 

 



Weather's looking terrific again the next day as we head for Mt Somers. We choose to climb up the Rhyolite Ridge track which turns out to be a pretty steep climb up through bush and scrub to a ridge. Fantastic views all round



 

Standing at the top of the ridge we then have a bit of a scramble further on up eventually meeting the junction with the Mt Somers track

The walk is circular and across the valley we can just make out the return track but doing the whole thing would be too tough on my knee so we accept we'll return the way we came




This gives you an idea of the ridge, you can just make out an orange pole marker

 



Back down at the car park Mike just about manages a bit of river deep enough to swim in after a long hot descent



Hog's Back, 16 December

After climbing a bit we come to the top of the hill, where the path takes us through lots of flowering manuka bushes and eventually out onto a beautiful foot path along the hill side appearing to head up towards the mountains.



Just before we begin to descend we come across this rather lovely fallen tree

Looking through the dead branches across the valley towards the Hog's Back



The path takes us across a wide stretch of tussock grass towards a wooded area

We cross the stream and the path takes us through a series of wooded areas interspersed with alpine meadows, heading upwards from now on

Eventually we get to the foot of the Hog's Back. Very little vegetation just a lot of loose rock as we zig zag upwards

At the top we meet up with a few groups of off roaders. The bald stony earth gives way to coarse grass, bushes and tussock, and we find a warm sheltered spot for our picnic.



Gisborne w/e 4-7 December 2014

We flew up to Napier on an evening flight on 4 December and A&A met us at the airport and took us back home for dinner. The next morning Andy drove us to Gisborne where we'd booked into a hotel by the harbour for two nights. We had a wander round the town, great bookshop with café above it in the centre. Bit of a cold wind blowing the day we arrived but turned out beautiful for the rest of the w/e. Found a great place for breakfast round the corner which did an amazing Hawaiin breakfast booster, a cross between a fruit muesli and a smoothy. Weren't so successful with our dinner on the first evening. All OK but for the oysters which tasted like they'd been through the dish washer. Our luck changed on the second evening when Andy found a Mexican pop-up restaurant which was terrific.

On Saturday we walked along the beach to the old lighthouse

It's a rather odd lighthouse, rusty ironwork and cement, no longer possible to access the spiral staircase

Lots of shags posing above us . . .

. . . and plant-life fossils in the rocks around

Our hotel was close to the marina, behind it is the hill we climbed

Towards the top of the hill, beneath a pohutakawa tree, is a statue of Captain Cook as this is where he where he first set foot on New Zealand soil.

A great view over Gisborne from the top of the hill. Saw loads of tuis feeding on the flax