(written on February 11th from notes taken previously).
So I realized this morning that the freedom camping spot was not parking along side the pond where I and multiple others had parked: No, The Freedom camping was at the end of the pond by the hydro station.
Oops. 🙃
Gratefully, nobody came by to ticket me for incorrectly parking. It’s super duper unlikely that anybody would, but still. 🙏
I left argyle pond right about 9:45 this morning and drove pretty much straight from there northeast to Renwick, then northwest to Havelock, and then over to Peloras Bridge Scenic Reserve, the first adventurous stop Chase and I made on the South Island three years ago.
I failed, however coming to remember that it was a weekend, a Sunday to be specific, so the place was absolutely slammed.
🙄
[sigh]
When Chase and I were there three years ago, there were just a handful of other people, including a group of maybe four or five that had set up a huge ropes wing on the bridge. I think they were just taking it down as Chase and I arrived.
I remember doing a little bit of cliff jumping from probably 12 to 15 feet above the water, and I remember lots of sand flies. 🙃
I guess one bright spot to having a gazillion people everywhere is more people to dilute the number of sand flies. 🙃
Anyway, I parked right next to the toilets, so I availed myself of that opportunity and then walked over to the bridge.
The bridge is probably a good 15-20 meters above the water. It’s a ways down. The highest I’ve ever jumped is about 13ish meters (42 feet), and this feels a lot higher.
Someone online says it’s only 11 meters, but there’s no way. Wish I had rope to measure the height!
Anyway, after hanging out at the bridge and chatting with a few people here and there, I decided to go down and enjoy the river itself.
The first I made another pass past the toilets. 🙃
Once down below, I spent quite a long time on the short cliff edges (probably only 3-5 meters above the water) staring into the water to try and figure out where the deepest part of the river was, to see if maybe it was possible to find a super deep spot where you actually could jump off from the bridge above without hurting yourself.
I think there might have been a sign saying no jumping, though, so it was probably a moot point.
Anyway, after spending a whole bunch of time scouting out but not actually jumping in, I finally jumped in. Unlike my trip with Chase three years ago, this time I swam across the river to the cliff on the other side, which I think was more like seven to eight meters tall.
Getting up to the top required a little bit of deep-water bouldering on rock that was slick in places and sometimes a little awkward; but with careful effort, I was able to make it to the highest point.
It wasn’t a straight shot down from the top, so you did have to jump out a little bit, so I sat up there for a little while, waiting for my feet to dry off enough to feel comfortable with my takeoff.
The odds of my slipping on takeoff even with wet feet are probably tiny, but better the closer to zero the better, right?
After hanging out up there for a little while, I finally jumped in for the first time, enjoying myself thoroughly. 🙃
I just love cliff jumping. 😁
I think I jump from that spot maybe three times? before swimming back across.
Fun stuff. ☺️
Spent a little bit of time chatting with some locals, when perhaps a hundred meters downriver, I heard some shouting.
It sounded frantic, and got my attention quickly. But when I looked over, the person who was yelling was on the shore looking uphill and waving, so I didn’t think much of it at first.
But the yelling continued and sounded as if there were some kind of emergency.
And there was. 😬
Just a bit downriver from the stretch of mini cliffs that I and others had been jumping off of, the river opened up a little bit before narrowing again. Apparently, someone who was swimming in that area realized he couldn’t touch the bottom because it was super deep and had a panic attack, rendering him unable to swim at all.‼️😬‼️
When I realized something was actually wrong, I ran across the rock formations between where I was and the larger water catchment between the two narrower spots in the river.
By the time I got to a place where I could jump in to swim over and help, someone who was a lot closer than I was had already managed to get to the man and get him to shallow enough water to stand.
The drowning man, however, was still unable to gain bodily function, despite being in shallow water, so a few people got in and straight up carried him to the bank, so he could sit down on the rocks and regain his faculties.
Wow. 😶
Never dawned on me that someone could nearly drown because they had a panic attack.
Sobering.
After that… adventure, I decided to do some exploring. 😊
If you don’t already know, that area around the Peloras Bridge is where the barrel-riding escape from the Woodland Elves realm happens in the… is it the first Hobbit movie?
I don’t remember.
I didn’t have the movie pulled up, and I don’t remember exactly what the scenery looked like in the movie, so I don’t know the specific spots on the river here where it was filmed, but I decided to do a little bit of exploring first up the river–climbing along the side of the cliffs a little bit and then waiting through the river in different spots, snapping pictures of the beauty around me.
After spending probably 30 or 45 minutes exploring upriver, I decided to do a little bit of exploring downriver.
So. Many. People.
😅
I went a good little ways down, all the way to where the rocky cliff banks give way to a large gravel bar and rock formations that are barely above river level.
As I was exploring downriver, I turned around and looked back where I had come and realized that where I was just so happened to be the confluence of two rivers, and that there was another bridge (a swing bridge) above the other river maybe 150 meters from where I was.
Maybe jumpable? 😎
So I walked back up the river on my side of the bank a little bit and then ran into a gentleman named Javier that I chatted with for probably a good 30 minutes. He was from… hmmm… was it Chile? I don’t remember.
He worked at a Mexican restaurant in Wellington and was down with his wife visiting his mother-in-law. They had come for the day to enjoy the lovely water.
After chatting with him, I put my phone in my little waterproof case and then made my way across the swift-moving river.
There was a group of young-teenage-looking kids on the other side, goofing around, jumping in, and just generally enjoying themselves.
I made it to shore on the other side of the river just a skosh downstream from the kids, pulled myself from the water, walked over a little berm that led me to the other river, and walked up the rocky bank of that river until I got to the part of the river directly below the swing bridge.
As I was walking up the bank, I yelled up to someone who was walking across the swing bridge. I think I asked them if it was deep enough to jump from there.
It wasn’t. 🙃
When I got there, I think it was only two or three feet deep–definitely not what you want to be jumping in from maybe 15 meters up. 😅
After swimming back to the other side, I ran into a lady that I chatted with for probably a good 30+ minutes, finding out perhaps half way through the chat that she was Javier’s wife. 🙃
We chatted about all sorts of things, including local New Zealand politics, which is often interesting to me to hear the perspectives of the locals.
Eventually, I bit her farewell, and bid a slightly reticent farewell to Peloras Bridge. Maybe it’s just my age, but more and more I find myself wondering if I’m ever going to be back to the places I visit, which leaves me feeling a little melancholic at the prospect of leaving these experiences in the past to live for the rest of time simply as memories.
🥺
I don’t… like that idea. I want to bottle these experiences up and drink from them again and again.
🥺
Not much I can reasonably do about it, though, so I headed back to the van and got myself moving.
There was a freedom camping spot not too far away, but upon arrival, I found that it was full. There were open spots in the parking lot, but only four of them, I think it was, were permitted for freedom camping.
So as quickly as I pulled into the parking lot, I pulled out, passing, unbeknownst to me, a DOC parking enforcer on the way out.
From there, I headed to a different freedom camping spot a ways down the road, but not too far. It was only just a little after 5:00 p.m. when I got there, but with so few available locations in the area, and the next one is being much closer to significant tourist places, I figured I had best take advantage of any place I could find that had space.
And this next one had space. In fact, I was the only one there when I arrived. There were spaces for I think six different vehicles, in a little parallel parking pullout.
Shortly after I arrived, parking myself in the front of the line, so as to make it easier for others coming after me to just be able to pull up behind to me instead of having to weave around and park in front of me, The parking and forcer guy that I didn’t realize had been at the previous spot pulled up next to me and started chatting with me, impressed that I had left the other place instead of pushing my luck and parking there for the night anyway.
I told him that I wasn’t too keen on getting an expensive parking ticket (general between $200 and $800 😶), So I’d come over here.
I ended up chatting with the gentleman (Mike), for a good little while before we bid each other farewell.
Lovely gentleman, he was. 😊
I enjoy meeting lovely people. ☺️
The other five available parking spots filled up little by little until all the spots had been taken; And do I could have used my time quite effectively to work on catching up on past journal entries, I… didn’t. 🙃
I just… veged for the rest of the night. 😅
Another day in the books!
Lift the world.
Bring it on.
~ stephen
Lift the World 