Bealey to Methven

After an early getaway I was up above Bealey, looking north over the Waimakariri. The track into Craigieburn Forest Park was accessorised nicely, with walking poles...

and Russell lupins! 

So imagine my delight when I got into the trees and found them festooned with mistletoes. 

The flowers have a sort of spring loaded hinge that bellbirds can open to obtain nectar, and pollen gets moved around on feathers. 

Seed set is rather poor and predator control pushed up bellbird numbers in an experiment done in this forest, but seed set didn't improve. It raises the question, could an insect pollinator be missing or rare in the system now? 

A wonderful sulpher yellow fungus seemed only to grow on dead beech wood. 

The track crosses the flanks of Mt Bruce in tussocky vegetation, then drops back to treeline. 

It didn't take long to reach Lagoon Saddle where a wee Wendy House offers shelter in an emergency. 

Shortly after that, I met the Harper River headwaters. 

First impressions were very favourable... at last, a river of the sort I've done a lot of (blue duck) work in. 

I spent a happy few hours crisscrossing Harper River, including an unprogrammed passage through a gorge. I missed a marker that would've taken me out over a hill and when I suspected something and checked, I decided I was having too much fun to turn back. Result - I found fresh prints of a big-bodied stag. Mental note. 

West Harper Hut hoved into view. It was built in 1957, it still has canvas bunks. 

Eventually the river sobers up, there's a suspension bridge, then another on a side-creek and I was at Hamilton Hut. 

So was the rest of the world. Sixteen hikers: Sobos, Nobos and five women walking in a circle. 

The smell of people's breakfasts revolts me so I was out of there before the cooking started in the morning. The river valley opens out downstream of the hut and a 4WD track helps with finding good crossings. 

These grassy riverflats have been retired from farming and matagouri and tutu are rapidly colonising them. 

The Pinnacles deserved their name, 

I am a bit vague on this but did they feature in a Lord of the Rings film? (seems like a lot of this area did). 

At this point, hikers are on Glenthorne Station where there is a lot of new fencing and cropping. 

The weeds included briar rose and small dark (native?) bees were hard at work harvesting pollen even though a really strong wind was blowing. 

It wasn't a good day for this poor cicada. 

I made camp early afternoon near the channel that diverts some of Harper River into Lake Coleridge for power generation and sat under pine trees reading Marcel. Swann doesn't survive feminist (ie my) analysis. For hundreds of pages he's been trying to control Odette's social life, and I'm beginning to be as fed up with him as she is. Funny thing is, I can "see" her clearly. Swann is just a stick figure. 

Three hikers I met at Hamilton Hut camped there too and I heard the Waiau Pass S&R story. These guys found the American, who'd broken his ankle. He was wrapped in a rock-coloured tent, lying in a riverbed and did not have a PLB. He hadn't even seen my interlocuteurs come by. The Israeli used his own beacon, the Dutchman is a nurse and began First Aid and the Australian made hot sweet tea and packed the tent. A helicopter arrived 50 minutes after the button was pressed. It meant a phone rang in Israel at 0200hrs, alarming the family. Apparently our Rescue Centre said, "if he activated his beacon, he's alive so try not to worry yet". The three Samaritans told me, your system is fantastic. Then they said, "but there should be a card reader on the chopper to get the injured person to pay a levy equal to the cost of a beacon".

Another early start this morning, for the long road walk towards Lake Coleridge Station. This is looking west up the Wilberforce, and the image below is Mt Ida, and Harper River. 

I slogged past Lakes Selfe, Evelyn, and Georgina. Trout were jumping for a damselfly rise on Lake Georgina and a pair of Crested Grebes kept me under surveillance. 

Finally I met the shuttle and came to Methven. The Trail starts again on the south bank of Rakaia River and I hope to get a ride there on Sunday. This afternoon I realised I have covered three quarters of the distance to Bluff.