(written on April 1st from notes taken previously)
Wow! Foggy morning!
I drove away from my camping spot about 9:30ish and headed right back toward the gorge.
The fog made for some pretty cool pictures.
And I hoped to get to the Gorge with fog still blanketing everything.
Unfortunately, the fog cleared out before I got there, but fortunately, though not all the way back, the color of the river was returning to the norm I had experienced during my first trip to New Zealand. 😁
I didn’t walk all the way down, just sort of checked things out and then headed back to my van.
Remembering the question those girls asked me a couple months ago about what the trail was like the rest of the way around and if it was worth the walk, and also having seen someone in a motorized wheelchair yesterday, I decided to walk the trail backwards to check that section out again.
Most of the second 2/3rds of the trail (the first part for me since I was walking it in reverse today) is bush walk without much of a view. In one spot, you can see upriver a little bit through the trees, but mostly it’s thick bush and hills in the way of further views.
Once you get all the way back to the river, however, you arrive at the really long swing bridge. That longer bridge spans two different chasms and is also above the river than the one that I jump off of.
When Chase and I were exploring the area 3 years ago, we didn’t jump off of that higher bridge because we could actually see the rocks through the water below.
Oddly, when I walked out onto the bridge today and looked down at the water, first, it didn’t seem anywhere near as high as I remembered it, and second, I couldn’t see the rocks below the surface. 🤔
I distinctly remember seeing the rocks, and thinking it was pretty much certain death to jump from that height with water so shallow.
🤷
Weird.
There was a kayaker in the river below and an older gentleman with some equipment taking measurements of some kind.
I struck up a conversation with him and learned that he and his kayaking co-worker were district council employees preparing for an international workshop teaching others how to measure river depth, speed, and volume. They were doing a run-through, I think, of what they would be doing during the workshop with participants.
The younger man, I think probably mid-to-late twenties, in the kayak below had sonar equipment on the back of his kayak that was reading the depth, and the gentleman above had a laptop and was marking down the depth at one-meter intervals as both of them went from one side of the river to the other.
I chatted both with the older gentleman above and the kayaker below for a good little while, asking them lots of questions.
After a while, the older gentleman asked if I wanted to help, and I enthusiastically volunteered. He handed me a paper and pen to note down the water speed as he checked it with his radar gun. My helping allowed him to go from one spot to the next without having to stop, put down the radar gun, markdown the data, safely stow the paper away, and get his radar gun to repeat the cycle, over and over and over from one side of the river to the other.
It was nice to go from being slightly worried I might be annoying them with all my questions to recognizing that they weren’t annoyed at all and were enjoying the company and the help. 😊
I ended up spending about two hours there with them. 🙃
The older gentleman invited me to join him at a local pub later in the evening if I was going to be around as a thank you for my help. 😊
I don’t remember what the flow rate was, but the river depth was about three meters, and the bridge was 22 meters above the water.
I kicked myself for not getting the gentleman’s contact information before bidding each other farewell. 😕
As I walked the trail from there, I continued to snap pictures.
Such a beautiful place. 😊
To my delight, I passed a young man with a swimming suit who was getting ready to play in the river, so I went back to my van, packed up my stuff, and headed over to the cliffs. 😁
At first, I was the only one jumping.
Eventually, after I jumped off the rock right next to him a few times, a nice gentleman from Israel (in the black shirt) decided to give it a go, and a good bit later on, after a whole bunch of coaxing, so did his girlfriend. 🥳
There was also a Belgian family there that had been playing in the water or the little inlet below, and after seeing people jumping from the cliffs, the younger kids egged their dad on to give the cliff jumping a try as well.
And he did. 😎
Go dad! 😊
Great memories for the dad and his kids. 🥳
A gentleman from the Netherlands joined in as well, and it was about that time that I told them I was going to move over and jump from the bridge. 😁
So I headed over to the bridge, all by myself at first.
But after a jump or two or three, or however many it was, the young man from the Netherlands and his friend, both of whom had already been skydiving today, came on over and made the jump from the bridge with me. 🥳
Yay!!! 🥳
Of course, I love the attention, but it’s even more fun to be able to actually share the experience with people and not just be the entertainment.
While we were jumping, a young man, probably 20 something, went back to get his swimming suit, and he showed up while we were on the bridge. I recommended that he jump first from the cliffs before the bridge, if he’d never jumped from anything as high as the bridge before, so he did, setting up his tripod and camera to take pictures of himself as he jumped off the cliffs.
Then he came over to the bridge and jumped with me. 😊
Super nice guy, also American (from Georgia). We chatted for a good little while, talking about traveling and whatever else.
When we called it a day, we both chatted while walking back to the parking lot and then stayed and chatted for a little while while in the parking lot.
Really great guy, but I also started getting the vibe that maybe he was… interested in me? Especially after he invited me to dinner. 😅
It might not have been that kind of interest at all, but that was sort of the very subtle vibe I got?
I’ve been out of the dating scene for years and years, and I’m out of practice handling situations of undesired interest, let alone from someone of my same sex. 🙃
So it was a little awkward for me.
The inviting to dinner part actually happened after we’d said goodbye the first time. As I was driving down the road, he was pulling to a stop on the side of the road, so I rolled down my window to ask if he was okay, and he was just stopping to take pictures.
That’s when he invited me to dinner.
Would make those kinds of situations a lot easier if I had a girlfriend. 😆
I got back to town in time swing by the Four Square (grocery store) and buy some ice cream. 🙃
I also ended up hanging out with the two ladies running the little store, chatting about all sorts of things, mostly politics, I think? That’s a common topic for people to want to talk about, given that I’m from the USA. 🙃
From there, it was back to the Woodstock Domain, with me happily paying another $5 to stay the night. I had thought about taking a quick visit over to the Glow Worm Dell, but I decided against it.
Foolishly, and I don’t even remember exactly how it happened, I ended up draining my battery down. I think maybe I left my internet on too long? Whatever the cause, I didn’t want to deal with it, so I put off the jump start ’til morning.
Another fun day. 😊
Lift the world.
Bring it on.
~ stephen
Lift the World 