(written on January 17th from notes taken previously)
I headed over to Motu Falls this morning, following a narrow dirt road for a bit off into the bush.
The falls itself was a little underwhelming, given I’ve seen so many wonderful falls all over the place, but… oh well. 🙃
After a little bit, I headed back to the place where I spent the night, next to the little rural school on the one side and the bathroom on the other, cow fields and forested hills making up most of the rest of the scenery.
I hung out there at the same place with good little while, veging a little bit and trying to figure out what I wanted to do about the pile of tires that had been dumped in the weeds by the cow-field fence.
Tired of trash everywhere. 😕
I spent a little time picking up trash (other than the tires), and then, thinking about what to do with the tires, I debated going over to the school vs waiting for a guy who had walked with his dog a good ways up the road back toward the falls vs just leaving.
In the end, I just left.
I decided I wanted to go back to some of the places I had gone to a few years ago, specifically Rere Rockslide and Rere Falls, and I found a shorter, alternate route through the hills on a little dirt road without having to Go all the way to Gisborne and then backtrack. 🎉
The first stop was Rere Rockslide, which I both explored more and experienced less. 🙃
That was where Chase and I met the Austrian girls 3 years ago, and where I had my first minor injury of the trip, smashing my leg pretty darn hard on one of the dips in the huge slide as I went down.
The water was super dirty today, I think because during the night last night there was a pretty powerful storm that rolled through that I remember just pounding my little van.
I’m guessing that it stirred up a bunch of sediment and… cow manure. 😅
I started by taking a few pictures in the same spot as I had those years ago, and then I ran into an older couple from Ireland, and I chatted with the gentleman for a bit while his wife was wondering elsewhere.
If I remember correctly, he comes to New Zealand every year?
I don’t remember. 😅
After chatting with him for a bit, he blaming the nastiness of the water on the cows, he and his wife left, and I put my solar panel and one of my charging bricks out on one of the picnic tables above the slide to charge.
I decided I wasn’t really interested in sliding down again, giving my experience last time, and being by myself, and especially with the nasty looking water, so I decided to do a little exploring instead, very carefully making my way across the river, hoping not to slip and slide all the way down, and then making my way very very carefully down the far bank all the way to the bottom and around.
I wanted pictures from different angles than we got last time. 🙃
I succeeded, though it was quite challenging at times to cross narrow rushing sections of the river without falling into the drink.
Eventually, I did get what I hope are decent pictures from different angles. At the very least, they are a different angles and from further down the river looking back up toward the sun.
As I bushwhacked my way all the way around the very large pool of water at the bottom, I went through a section of bush that looked like it had the only tree in New Zealand that carries the same oils as poison ivy.
😬
😅
I had already been bushwacking through it for a while when I realized what it looked like; and if it were that tree, I would have to bag up my clothes and get myself bathed quite quickly.
I hopped on wine and looked at some pictures online once I was back in reception area and then decided that my memory wasn’t good enough to be able to identify for a certain whether or not what I had been walking through was that particular poison tree, so I walked all the way back down, bushwacked a little bit to get over to where some of the example trees were, snapped a bunch of pictures, and then compared them to what I had found online.
I’m blanking right now, but I think it’s called the rhus tree? (I’d just look it up, but I don’t have reception, as I’m writing this while almost three miles up a peripheral canyon to the main canyon that headed inland from the coast.)
Anyway, after lots of nervous comparison work, I concluded that It was not the poison tree, though I was still a tad nervous. 🙃
Y’all know how much I love poison ivy/mango/cashew/oak/sumac… rhus.
😅
After getting back, gratefully finding that my charging brick and solar panel were still there and had been undisturbed, I started charging my phone and doing a little bit of journal catch up.
From Rere Rockslide, I headed over to Rere Falls, The next place that Chase and I had visited with the Austrian girls last time, which was just a handful of kilometers down the road.
Last time, I had been a little more adventurous, climbing behind the falls and taking some video and what not, the girls joining me.
This time I just snapped some pictures for memory sake and headed out.
Figured I’d head back over to the Marine Reserve that Chase and I had attempted to explore last time but had failed for whatever reason I don’t remember, so I chose one of the many freedom camping spots along the beach, Gisborne, taking note of a gas station with super duper cheap gas that I would buy from tomorrow, taking some beautiful pictures of the sunset, and now calling it a night, having gotten to my stopping place.
I’m a little melancholic after today, remembering the past and wishing to remain positively connected to it but finding that’s just… not the reality.
😞
Oh well.
Lift the world.
~ stephen
Lift the World 