In the middle of the night or early early morning, we had some poor cow making hideous noises, like it had lost its offspring or mate or something. It was so loud and sounded really… distressed.
😞
At some point, I got up and went outside, climbed up the fence a little bit and had a look, and there it was, quite near where I was, facing a field quite a ways away, bellowing in a… I don’t know… like it’s heart was broken. So sad sounding.
Later that morning, as I was getting ready to drive us away, I heard another cow making the same bellowing sound (it’s a sound I’ve never heard a cow make–short, repeated, super earnest sounding). The other cow was far away, but in the exact direction the one by me was bellowing.
😞
Sad.
I think.
I really hate the animal food industry.
On to something a little… happier. 🙂
Guess what?!?!?! Not a cloud!!! Not. a. single. cloud in the sky.
Thank you, Chase!!! 🥳🎉🥳
I woke up around 5 ish? Looked out the window, and wow! I could see the silhouette of the mountains with a completely clear sky end to end–everywhere!
I moved everything out of the driver’s seat, letting Chase continue lying down, while I drove slowly on the dirt road (trying to give him a chance to sleep). I stopped, borrowed his phone, since mine takes terrible pictures, drove to one lookout spot, just as the sun was almost about to come up from behind the mountains. I was gorgeous. 😍
As the sun popped above the mountains, I got back in the car and made the long dirt-road drive all the way to the beach lookout we’d gone to the day before.
The scenery was spectacular. 😊
I’d say maybe a cross between the Tetons and the Olympics? Very very beautiful, whatever the best comparison be.
We were there for probably a few hours. Chase slept, while I took pictures and pondered. The mountains were so beautiful. I’ve been really grateful for how easy going Chase has been, being willing to drive back an hour the way we came just so I could get a possible glimpse of the mountains.
Once Chase got up, we talked about going on a hike. I suggested we split up, so I could do my little hike up the canyon following the river, and he could go to Franz Joseph and explore a little bit like he wanted to, and then get a shower like he wanted to.
First, though, I called Qantas to redeem my travel credit. I ended up being on the phone with them for probably 45 minutes or an hour before they finally got everything done–I hope.
They promised an email confirmation for the new tickets and everything, but they promised a confirmation last time when I canceled everything, but I never got it. So I crossed my fingers and hoped that everything actually had gone through.
Chase dropped me off at the canyon where Cooks River comes down from Mount Cook, and I started heading up that way. Chase, went over to Franz Joseph to explore a little Gorge that he was interested in exploring. I told him that I would be back down from the mountain by 10:00, so he said he’d meet me back where he dropped me off about 10:00, unless he heard from me sooner.
So I did my little river hike just stone hopping all the way up the river for miles. There was a place where I could choose to take the left or the right, sticking with cooks river, or going up a different canyon. I chose to stick with Cooks River because it would get me closer to the actual peak of Mount Cook.
What I didn’t bother to figure out was how far of a hike it was. 🙃 The Cook’s River option (which I thought might be better because it had more water), was a good bit longer, and because it had so much water, once the canyon narrowed, it made it a lot more dangerous–the water being in deep, fast moving channels that i couldn’t get past without great stuff difficulty.
After fighting my way around several obstacles because of the fast-moving deep water (generally, climbing through the Bush on the steep sides of the canyon), I finally gave up, realizing I had a massive distance to cover and to treacherous a treck likely ahead of me if I tried to keep going via the water route.
The other route would have been much better, as there was a lot less water, so even when the canyon narrowed, I was much more likely to have a safe path through the water. But… hindsight. 🙃
So I hiked back down from my furthest point to where the two canyons and two rivers met. Right there at the confluence, there was a pretty nice rock to sit and just enjoy the scenery with. By that time, though, weariness and overtaken me, so instead of sitting and thinking about life and the decisions that I need to make and that I planned to make while I was out here, I took a nap. 🙃
In order to avoid the sand flies, I put on my long sleeve jacket my sweatpants, my long socks, my shoes, my hat, and I grabbed a very breathable pair of clean underwear that I put around my face as bug netting.
Normally, I hate having anything around my neck and face, feeling, I don’t know, claustrophobic? But weighing that against the reality of being eaten alive by the little buggers, it wasn’t even a question.
Underwear over head. Check.
I dozed there on the rock, not really going to sleep to soundly, as the river was rushing below, and I was on a slope on the rock. I’m already a light sleeper, and I pretty much always wake up as soon as I change positions, but when there’s a rushing river added to the mix, it helps keep the doze even lighter, I’d guess. 🙃
I always go on little solo ventures like that to think and try and come to terms with decisions that I need to make in my life, and it pretty much always ends up the same way: I get to where I’m going. I get tired. Then it’s time for me to go back, and I haven’t made any decisions.
Story of my life. 🙃
I made it back down super quickly. I told Chase I’d get back around 7:00, which was super optimistic, but I hurried down, often times at a jog, jumping from rock to rock. Gratefully, I’ve had so much practice at River Rock hiking, that I can run around like that at a jogging pace without twisting my ankle or blowing out my knees or whatever.
Or maybe I’m just lucky and I just jinxed myself. Guess we’ll see. 🙃
Chase, for his part, had a similar adventure, trying to get to a certain place, but not being able to. I think we both enjoyed our little adventures, even though we came up short of our goals.
I got back to the rendezvous site at 6:58, 2 minutes early from my very optimistic estimated time. 🥳
Arriving before chase, I took the opportunity to take a quick bath in the river to rinse off all the sweat from the hike. It was cold, but it felt good, but the huge cloud of sand flies that buzzed around my head certainly put a damper on the experience. 😬
As I lay there in the water with only my head sticking up above the water, every time I looked above me, there was a huge cloud of sand flies just waiting to carry me away as soon as I came out of the water. 😬
Eventually, unless you want hypothermia to overtake you, you gotta get out, sand flies notwithstanding. 🙃
So I put on my big boy undies, got quickly out of the water, slapping off as many of the little buggers as I possibly could every second or so, and quickly put on my shoes and socks and booked it up to the road.
I probably mentioned this before, but as long as you keep moving, they don’t seem to bother you. You can’t just stroll slowly. But a good solid walk, doesn’t even have to be really strenuous, will keep them at bay. Go figure as to why, but I’ll take it. So will I waited for Chase pick me up, I walked back and forth and back and forth to avoid the sand flies. That worked for a while, until the smart little buggers realized I was just walking back and forth, so they waited for me and every time I would pause to turn around or whatever they would seize their opportunity. So I stopped walking back and forth and just started walking in a big circle, and that seems to foil their endless efforts to suck me dry in order to make babies.
Once Chase picked me up, we started heading south. The major destination was the blue pools, but we had a handful of little places to check out along the way, so we headed south, found a place to pull off and sleep for the night, and crashed.
Oh! I forgot! We did stop off to see one waterfall late in the evening as the sun was going down. It was in a crazy deep Blue River that was absolutely gorgeous. Or I guess I should say that the waterfall was coming off the mountain and feeding into a crazy deep blue river. I absolutely love the color of the rivers and the lakes in this area of the South island. It’s just breathtaking. 😍
Love and hugs. 😊
Lift the World
~ stephen
Lift the World 