Kohaihai

Oyster Moon
Paul Foskett & Rhu Nash
Tue 5 Nov 2013 08:49

Position 41 06.428S  172 06.138E

 

We stayed a couple of nights at Karamea.  Campsite very tired but immaculately clean.  Lots of whitebait fishermen/women staying at the site.  Out all day fishing.  Anyway, our first trip was to a big Rima Tree.  And here we are….. that’s cloves in my pockets not my boobs…

 

 

And here’s the tree, nice bark.

 

 

The road to the tree was being graded at the time, unfortunately we met the grader and had to reverse a long way.

 

 

Drove to the end of the west coast road to Kohaihai.  Nothing there except a DoC (Department of Conservation) campsite, a shelter and some toilets.  Great walking though.  This is the start, or end, of the Heaphy Track, an 82 km walk that can take you anywhere between 3 and 5 days.  There are sleeping huts along the way that you have to book in advance.  I fear Paul and I would possibly get to the first hut – or maybe not even that far, it’s a 6 hr walk, and stay there. 

 

 

Great swing bridge over the Kohaihai River.  It really did go up and down.

 

 

Paul was in his element…

 

 

Anyway, we did the Nikau walk (around and about a lot of tree ferns and nikau palms, pretty boring) and walked through woodlands to Scotts Hill Look-out.  Have I mentioned sand flies yet?  Not the invisible ones we are used to from the Pacific islands.  These guys are visible and lay their eggs in freshwater streams, so lots about in the wood and lakeside.  They pack a punch as well.  Once bitten for ever itchen. Lots on the track and at the lookout. View from the lookout down to Scotts Beach.  See the way those nikau palms grow out of the trees.  If it’s not these it’s the tree ferns.

 

 

We didn’t go any further, because we were knackered by the time we had climbed to the lookout and didn’t want to go down to the beach and then have to climb all the way back up.

 

 

Beaches here are long and lonely.  This carving on the beach at Kohaihai.  Thank god, thought Gladys, I can still touch my toes…

 

 

 

The shell I was photographing and Paul on the beach.

 

 

Lots of the fields have these humps in them.  At frst we thought overgrown river beds but all very regular.  The Paul saw someone mounding up the ground like this.  We assume it’s for drainage.

 

 

Once back at the campsite did a little walk to the estuary.  Tide was just going out.  Paul got these shots of a stilt and a bar-tailed godwit.

 

 

Here’s a moody shot…

 

 

Although this looks like detritus the black bits are tiny mud snails.

 

 

Here’s one of those bigger snails that we spotted a while ago.