(written on February 6th from notes taken previously).
Definitely a much less physically active day today. 🙃
I got up at the Kiwi Camp place and headed back over to the Tupapakurua Falls car park.
The hike turned out to be a super long one, and after everything yesterday, wasn’t quite sure if I was up to the challenge.
I’ve seen so many waterfalls in New Zealand, and this one, though beautiful, didn’t have a huge amount of pull given the… close to 30,000? steps I put in yesterday.
There was one cool trail-maintenance strategy being employed on this trail that I’d never seen anywhere else. I guess there was a portion of trail far away from the beginning that was getting squishy when it rains and needed some gravel to pack in and remove the squishiness.
So at the beginning of the trail, they had a little sign next to a whole bunch of small buckets half filled with gravel.
The sign mentioned several drop stations, and requested hikers grab one or two of the buckets and carry it/them from one drop station to the next as a way of slowly getting the gravel across long distances to where it needed to be on the trail.
I wanted to help, but with my back the way that it is, carrying gravel isn’t the greatest. 😕
Eventually, though, I think at station number two, I grabbed a bucket of gravel, rested it on my right quad, so that my leg was carrying the weight instead of my back, and carried two or three buckets of rock that way.
What a great idea for trail maintenance!
I think lots of people who go on hikes and walks are also the kinds of people who are pro taking care of the outdoors and appreciate the value of the opportunities and have a desire to give back.
I probably only made it a quarter of the way to the waterfall before sitting down on the bench and contemplating whether or not I wanted to do the whole walk.
As I sat there, an older gentleman walked up, looking for his glasses that he had lost somewhere along the trail, and we chatted for a bit. He had gone all the way to the falls and was coming back, and our conversation helped me make the decision to not go all the way there, as the hardest part was yet to come, and I was tired from yesterday, despite wanting to make the walk in order to burn some more calories to burn off the significant amount of weight I’ve gained since coming to New Zealand. 😅
After heading back, I decided to head out, destination Ithilean (for us LOTR peeps), otherwise known as Mangawhero Falls.
After driving through the little ski town of Ohakune, I drove up into the mountain, similar to what I had done yesterday while talking to my sister Heather.
As forecast, it was stormy today, low clouds, misty rain drops, and at times, heavy winds. After getting to the falls car park and finding no toilet, I drove back down the canyon a bit, to a place with a very large gravel turnout, where I could use micro john in peace, for such was my urgent necessity. 😅
I took the short walk over to the falls, snapping some pictures, and then drove all the way up to the ski resort, as high as I could go, just like yesterday.
This time I hung out up there for a good bit at the canyon end of a large, empty “parking lot” (that looked a bit more like a rock field than a day park), a little ways below the main resort.
The wind was howling, blowing in both clouds and misty rain that stung as the gales blew.
So powerful were the gusts that the waterfall on the far side of the canyon I was perched atop would periodically have the entire contents of its falls blow vertically up the cliffside and disappear as it joined the raindrops of the broader storm.
After going back down the mountain, I stopped for gas and groceries in Ohakune, as I was getting ready to head out into the middle of nowhere for who knew how long, and I didn’t want to be short fuel or supplies.
After stocking up, I headed south toward Raukawa Falls. If memory serves, there’s not really much interesting in the middle of the North island south of Tongariro.
But on the drive to the falls, on a super steep, bare mini mountain/very large hill, rate at the top on the ridge was an absolutely enormous tree.
There was no other vegetation but grass on the entire mountain.
But there it was, this absolutely enormous tree, as if it were something that you would see in a movie or a cartoon, perched there all alone on the ridge line.
I missed the best pictures of it, unfortunately.
It’s not uncommon in New Zealand to find yourself on roads that have no shoulders and that are often windy, leaving you know space to stop to snap pictures of beautiful views.
It’s just the nature of the landscape. 🙃
I did get some pictures of it, though.
I also had the driver’s side windshield wiper come completely off the wiper arm as I was driving down the road.
😶
😅
They’re supposed to be a little plastic piece that locks the wiper itself to the arm, but that was long gone. I thought maybe I could find it, but… no. 😆
So I pulled over at the first pull-out that I saw, got out the van in the rain, found some zip ties in my little toolbox, and spent some time rigging up a zip tie system to hold my wiper to my wiper arm.
Gratefully, it’s worked all day since. 🙏
The waterfall was right off the main road. Beautiful, but just a small viewing deck that’s relatively far away from the falls itself.
With my next stops being on the other side of a large region of hills with no direct roads across, but not wanting to retrace my steps, preferring a new experience to repeating a previous one, I picked a route heading northeast through a portion of the hill country, back to highway 49, destination the National Army Museum in Waiouru.
I arrived at the museum, at first using the wrong entrance but eventually finding the freedom camping spot around the back, parked, veged for a good little bit, people watched (e.g. the people in the RV next to me had like five dogs with them in their RV 🙃 which I realized when they took them all out for a walk and then brought them all back), and crashed for the night.
Lift the world.
Bring it on.
~ stephen
Lift the World 