Hiking Queen Charlotte Sound pt 2

So a little more than half way thru and Ann and I caught up with Genevieve, and we continued together to the end of the track. Now we had seen quite a few of a flightless bird indigenous to New Zealand called a weka (pronounced whack-ah). They are about the size of a house cat, with red eyes and brown body. Several had their chicks with them and they were aggressively searching for scraps from us -- even pecking at Ann's shoes and trying to get at our bags.

Just after meeting up with Gen, Ann's keen eyes picked out a black bird with a white balloon at its throat. This is a tui, another indigenous bird to New Zealand. We watched it hopping about one of the beech trees, it was searching for a bark beetle, another item we would not have noticed without Ann. These beetles are scale insects that live under the bark, and her anal tube sticks out of the tree and looks like a hair on the outside of the tree with a little blob of sugar at the end. These are the female beatles, and they use the sweet sap at the end to attract males (i think). These beetles have the longest anal tubes of any organism on the planet, and the tui and introduced wasps or bees feed on the sugary part. Ann actually tasted some, then Gen did, ... Do i dare eat something that actually comes out of a bug's butt? They did, so I felt compelled to do it too, it tastes like sugar. So yes i ate something excreted from the ass of an insect! Who would have thought that all the hairs covering the tree were actually the anal tubes of insects living under the bark.

We came across another huge native hardwood tree called a tia, Ann thought, and Ann thought it was left because it was not a strait tree, as the timber is quite excellent for building. Gen thought there was enough wood in this one tree to build a whole house, Ann thought so as well. It made us reflect having just seen the anal tubes of the beetle, of the amazing diversity in size of organisms on the planet, from the smallest single cell organisms to the mighty red wood trees and blue whales. We saw under a bunch of the bark beetle hairs, a whole group of plants called a sundew, which are insect-eaters. They get their nutrition by digesting small insects that get stuck on some sticky sweet sap the plant produces.

How wonderful it was to be walking and observing all of these natural wonders! We conclude that to not be curious about the world in which we live, people end up rushing about worrying about unimportant things, while the world passes one by. Gen's example was the bikers who have such a narrow focus on the trail, that they missed all the things Ann pointed out to us. Ann's was the loss of value of her house in the past year or so. My example was how half my stock portfolio's value disappeared while I traveled across the ocean to come on this trip. At first I was worried that one, I could no longer afford the trip I am on, and two, that I now dont have enough money to build the new house in CB next year. But here i am on this trip, and by god I am going to enjoy it while I can!

We somehow got on the subject of the Lord of the Rings movies and how they were filmed here in NZ, and I knew that some of the areas were being kept as tourist attractions. Ann knew that Hobbiton was in the middle of the north island around Hamilton, but that it was otherwise a more boring part of New Zealand, and that some of the silver beech elf forest scenes were filmed in Abel Tasman park near Nelson, where we are headed for tomorrow.

We saw a larger version of the green hood orchid later on the track, and then we saw a bell bird as well and another tui. But while we were in Endeavor Inlet and knew that it wasn't too much further to Ferneaux Lodge, we began to wonder how much further it was and the time. Ann had been on a few of these boat/hikes before and wasn't too worried about the time frame, but we had been going slowly looking at all the fascinating things Ann was pointing out, laughing and carrying on. Checking the time we found it to be 4Pm and right about then we came across a sign saying Ferneaux Lodge 25 minutes...oops.

Now, we had been quite stringently warned to be at the Lodge by 4 PM because the mail ferry had a schedule to keep, and they indicated that they would not wait very long for us. So we picked up the pace, moving quicker up the inlet. This was one of the places that there were a series of houses together. We saw one woman sitting on a bench in her yard, and asked, "is Ferneaux Lodge really 25 minutes away?" And her response was, "Well not at that pace it isn't." In the few gaps in the bush where a view to the top of the inlet was possible I had not seen our boat at any of the four or so piers, so we all felt ok, but still hurried.

Turns out we arrived at Furneaux Lodge about five or ten minutes before the ferry arrived, so had enough time to pee and sit for a second. Furneaux is very nice with idyllic manicured lawn down to the aquamarine clear waters of the Sound.

We board the ferry and head back to Picton now enjoying the incredible beauty of the Sound in afternoon sun, and head back to our little NZ trailer park/hostel for showers, dinner, and a good nights sleep!

Until next time,

Newo out.