Taylor's Mistake Hike

Saturday was a day of pounding rain
and gale force winds. So much for the beautiful spring blossoms - most of the lovely cherry trees are now completely denuded.

This photo was taken last week on campus before the wind and rain.










Several huge tree branches came down along the path to campus. Walking home under the eucalyptus trees made you realize why one of their nicknames is widow maker. There were small branches blowing everywhere. This photo was taken on a nice day.


After such a day, Sunday was a complete 180° change. Despite the frosty start it was a picture postcard perfect day with nary a cloud in sight and pleasant spring temps. We opted for something close to home. We drove across ChCh to the coast and hiked the raw and dramatic cliff edge walk from the suburb of Scarborough along Scarborough Head to the beach at Taylor’s Mistake (the name is said to have been given when Captain Taylor of the US ship Vulga mistook the bay for the entrance to Lyttelton Harbour) in Hobson Bay and then to the gun battery emplacements (NZ was worried about Japanese invasion during WWII) on Godley Head. It is hard to believe that this area is within the ChCh city limits.

This is the view across Sumner beach to ChCh proper with the Canterbury Plain and the snow-capped Alps in the distance.







This view is on the Pacific Coast side of Scarborough Head.





Sumner and Scarborough are some of the toniest of ChCh suburbs. There were some amazingly beautiful homes along the cliffs. One even had a bridge walkway from the third floor bedroom over to the hot tub gazebo. But I wouldn’t want people walking by my hot tub. Baches hang improbably off the cliffside at several of the beaches. The word “bach” is a contraction of “bachelor”; the word refers to the home built huts that provide a refuge from the busy world. Some of the baches are built on public land and there has been a long standing dispute as to their fate, but they add a lot of character to the beaches.

Doug as usual spotted a penguin in the bay. Even though we watched it for quite a while, it was too far away to positively identify the exact species. The walking track went across many sheep paddocks and a donkey pasture with Taylor’s Mistake beach in the background.

We drove around to the top of Godley Head after our hike to watch the paragliders. There were also model gliders taking advantage of the prefect conditions.

We ended the day trying to find Matson’s Beer. The White House by the Bridge was closed. So no luck this time. I then found with a little internet research that the brewery in here in ChCh. Doug will get his surprise soon.




In our search we did find whitebait in a fish store and decided to try it. It is quite a local delicacy at NZ$80 per kg. We knew we had to try it after seeing them being netted on the west coast. New Zealand whitebait are the juvenile of certain glaxiids which mature and live as adults in rivers with native forest surrounds. The larvae of these galaxiids are swept down to the ocean where they hatch and the sprats then move back up their home rivers as whitebait. They are best in an egg white omelette that does not mask the delicate flavour of the fish. We sautéed 125 g of fish with 4 egg whites. A lot of people are put off by the slimy little worm-looking things but it was delicious – a bit salty and slightly crunchy. It is even heart healthy for Doug with just egg whites.

Glorious Glaciers

In between the fruitless kiwi (bird) searches, we spent Friday exploring the Westland Tai Poutini National Park. The west coast of South Island routinely gets hammered with buckets of precipitation. Storms move in off the Tasman Sea and hit the Alps dropping an average of 5 metres of rain a year. The seemingly endless rain leads to snow falling in the glaciers’ accumulation zones which fuses into clear ice at 20 metres depth and flows down valleys as glaciers. Nowhere else in the world at this latitude do glaciers come so close to the coast. Franz Joseph and Fox glaciers are stereotypical cascades of ice grinding down towards the sea. During the last ice age (15,000 to 20,000 years ago) the glaciers reached the sea. Their terminal faces are now several kilometres inland but are advancing.

We had been watching the weather report closely and wisely chose a day that was clear for our glacier adventure. We signed on for a half-day morning trip on the Franz Joseph. When we checked in at 8:45 am we were outfitted with rubber boots, wool socks, crampons, wool cap, mittens, and raincoat after attesting to the fact that we were fit enough to walk over uneven rocks, ford streams, and climb ice stairs. We got on the big red bus for the short drive to the car park near the terminal face.

We walked along a bush trail for about 1 km.

One of the most amazing things about these glaciers is the tropical rainforest that surrounds them.

We had glimpses of the glacier while on the bush trail.

Our group of 35 was divided up into three groups according to self-assessed fitness levels. Doug and I chose group one – the fittest group that could move the fastest.

We out hiked many of the young things on the tour. We still had about 1 km to walk along/in the river bed before getting to the glacier face. We were able to rock hop across the few small streams we needed to cross. No deep stream crossings were necessary.

It was a warm day so no need for coat, wool cap, or mittens. The amount of melt water coming off the glacier was impressive.

Now that we had reached the glacier face it was time for crampons. Troy, our guide, chose me to demonstrate the proper technique for securing crampons to boots. The straps tie on the outside of your foot to avoid getting caught in the crampons.

Doug got to put on his own. Note the lovely fashion statement of having pants stuffed into socks. That is so the crampons do not catch on your pant legs.

We are going to be climbing the ice stairs, the narrow white line in the distance behind us.

Climbing up was hard work. I was glad to have water in my camel back.

Our loop trail allowed for some exploring of crevasses, caves, and more stairs.

The view from the top was magnificent and worth every drop of sweat.

The full sun was rapidly melting the stairs so Troy had to use the ice axe to clear and re-form a lot of the stairs we climbed during the morning. I was thankful to have on rubber boots so my feet stayed dry in the torrent coming down the stairs. Troy also had to re-sink several of the ice screws holding the ropes in.

After about 2 hours on the ice, down we went off Franz Joseph and on to Fox after a lunch of venison pie in a café in town.







The trail to the Fox Glacier face crossed a small stream bed and had great safety signs.

We concluded the day with the classic fabulous vista of Mt Cook (highest point in NZ) and Mt Tasman from Lake Matheson. The view was spectacular with the late afternoon sun on the western faces of the peaks. The wind had come up a little bit so the ripples in the lake prevented the perfect photo of Mt Tasman and Mt Cook reflected in the water.

The Great Kiwi (Bird) Quest

On Thursday, immediately following Doug’s lecture we left for a 5 hour drive to Okarito on the west coast of South Island. We even ate lunch in the car on the go to make time. This was our first foray over the Alps. The road on the east side of the divide is not so bad but the west side is pretty darn steep. You can see why the road is closed when there is a lot of snow or ice.

Driving in to Okarito, the kiwi sign on the side of the road got our hopes up that we would spot the elusive NZ national symbol in the wild. Okarito KiwiTours claims to have an 85% success rate at viewing the birds. We arrived in the small village with plenty of time to set up camp and eat our sandwiches before meeting up with Ian, our Okarito KiwiTour Guide. At the office (his garage) we also met Paul, a guide in training, and three young people making a video about eco-tourism. We were each outfitted with a walkie-talkie radio, safety vest, and torch (flashlight).

Ian and Paul also had spotlights with red filters (kiwis can’t see red light) and radio tracking gear. Ian briefed us on what kiwis sound like as well as the kiwi habitat we would be searching. Most of the searching is done by ear, listening for calls, shuffling in the underbrush, or snuffling as the birds explore for food on the ground. There are 6 radio-tagged birds so their range and habits are somewhat known. The Rowi are NZ’s rarest kiwi. There is a small (about 250 birds) distinctive population of Brown (Rowi) or Okarito Kiwi around the Pakihi Walk area in the South Okarito Forest.

After a short drive to the Pakihi Walk car park at the Department of Conservation area we set off on foot down a forest track, trying to move as quickly and quietly as possible. We had been told to wear quiet clothes – no waterproofs.

Ian pointed out some old tracks in the mud.

After another short briefing, we were each assigned an area of the track to patrol, listening carefully for kiwi calls, shuffling, or snuffling in the underbrush.

As darkness fell the great quest was on. Imagine trying to spot a shy, brown, nocturnal bird in dense brush. The only redeeming quality of a kiwi’s characteristics is that it is flightless. We knew it had to be on the ground. We spent 3 hours pacing, and then running up and down the track to false alarms as radio-tagged birds moved away from the track. Running around in the dark whispering into radios was very cloak and dagger exciting but very frustrating. Doug heard a bird shuffling in the brush and one other person heard a call but all I heard beside the morepork owls calling was the ringing in my ears from listening so hard. Finally, using the radio tracking device, Ian had a bird on the track but by the time we got there it had moved off into the dense brush. We retired back to Okarito and bedded down in our tent for the night with a very nice campground all to ourselves. A cooking shelter with running water and bathrooms with flush toilets are great campground amenities. We were about 50 metres from the beach so the pounding surf lulled us to sleep.

We awoke Friday to the predicted clear skies with gorgeous views of the Alps.

We ate breakfast down on the beach. The guy in the middle of the photo is netting whitebait, a small fish considered a delicacy here, in a small lagoon created by the receding tide.

Having been skunked Thursday night by the kiwis, we decided to have another go on Friday night by ourselves. Ian loaned us a red spotlight and we went back to the same area. Here is Doug on the track again. The wood box in the foreground is a stoat trap.



Stoats were introduced in NZ to control the rat population and have become more of a problem than the rats (think mongoose in Hawaii).

This time we waited at what we had been told was a burrow and finally after an hour heard a male’s single LOUD, shrill ascending whistle and the female’s single deeper hoarse whistle in response. The calls were several metres in the brush - so close - but no cigar with respect to visual sighting.


The little buggers still did not come out onto the track, at least where we were patrolling, so no visual contact was had. Most of the Kiwi houses with birds in captivity have day and night artificially reversed to increase the probability of spotting the banshees of the bush.
We came, we heard, we’ll be back.

Our Modern Maori Experience

When the Maori arrived in Aotearoa (Land of the Long White Cloud) they settled predominantly on the North Island. It was just too cold here on South Island for them to maintain settlements.

We spent a rainy morning in Wellington at Te Papa, the “Museum of New Zealand.” With only a few hours to explore the vast treasures of NZ history and culture we focused on the Maori collection, natural history, environment, and European settlement exhibits. The building dominates the waterfront and includes an outdoor bush area. The Maori collection includes it own marae (meeting house) and waka (canoe). Ornate carvings on the marae depict ancestors and gods. A person in the know can go into a marae and “read” the tribe’s history. Beautifully carved waka are a source of great mana (prestige) for an iwi (tribe) and are protected by tapu (sacredness).

Another fine art form is bone or pounamu (greenstone) carvings. Tiki (stylised human forms) and fish-hook pendants are carved in traditional and modern styles. Paua (abalone) shell is also carved into beautiful ornaments and jewellery and inlaid into Maori carvings. There were fine examples of all of these in the museum. Photographs were not allowed in the Maori collection so this one is from the Mitai Village we visited later.

The natural history and environment exhibits chronicle the interrelationships of the various peoples with the land. As one of the last places on earth to be colonized by humans, NZ was for millennia a safe laboratory for risky evolutionary strategies but with the arrival of the first Maori between about 1250 and 1300 AD and soon after by Europeans in 1642, things went downhill quickly. Both the Maori and the Europeans cleared vast areas of bush. The museum chronicles the challenges facing the native flora and fauna. Introduced species have caused an awful lot of problems leading to numerous extinctions. Several small islands around the country have been cleared of predators and had native species reintroduced in wildlife sanctuaries. Riccarton Bush here in ChCh has a predator proof fence around it to protect the nesting birds.

Maori cultural performances and traditional hangi are popular in Rotorua. We did the tourist bit and visited the Mitai Maori Village. Our tour consisted of a bush walk, a concert, and hangi. Once we were booked for the tour, a bus picked us up at the backpackers. Upon arrival at the village we were shepherded into a tent for before dinner drinks. The master of ceremonies warmed the crowd up with local banter and established that we were a tribe of 20 nations (countries of origin including Hawaii). Dror, a young guy from Israel volunteered to be our chief. Females were excluded from volunteering because if a male warrior falls in battle one person dies but if a female dies a whole family is wiped out. On our first bush walk we saw our hangi (traditional earth oven cooked meal) being slowly steamed on our way down to the stream. The hangi is similar to the Hawaiian imu or New England lobster bake but now commercialized for the masses.

The Maori warriors arrived by canoe on the stream from the Fairy Spring.

The concert consisted of singing and dancing. The Maori did not have a written history so it was kept in long, specific, and stylized songs and chants. The women twirling poi balls (flax balls tied to the end of cord) reminded me of May Day celebrations at Manoa School. I think we learned how to do poi balls in 4th grade. Games of agility with sticks thrown back and forth were also reminiscent of elementary school. The men demonstrated training with spears and greenstone weapons. The chief explained some of the moku (tattoo) patterns. Traditionally, the higher classes were decorated with intricate designs – women had moku only on their chins and lips, while high-ranking men not only had tattoos over their entire face, but also over other parts of their body (especially their buttocks). The tattoos were created using bone chisels, a mallet, and blue pigment. Here is a carving with sample tattoos.

The concert climaxed with the haka. Haka is Maori for any form of dance but has come to be associated with the chant that traditionally preceded a battle or challenged suspicious visitors. Delivered with fierce shouting, flexing arm movements, that resemble fists pummelling the side of someone’s head, and thunderous stamping to grind whatever is left into the dust, it is indeed a frightening sight. Bulging eyes and tongues poking out complete the scary picture. Each tribe had its own haka but the most famous one comes from Te Rauparaha (1768 – 1849). Made famous by the All Blacks (NZ national Rugby team) the haka is: (check out Youtube)

Ka mate, ka mate (It is death, it is death)
Ka ora, ka ora (It is life, it is life)
Tenei te tangata puhuruhuru (Behold the hairy man)
Nana nei i tiki mai i Whakawhiti te ra (Who caused the sun to shine)
Upane, aupane (Abreast, keep abreast)
Upane, ka aupane (The rank, hold fast)
Whiti te ra (into the sunshine)

Unfortunately my camera does not do well in low light so no good shots of the concert. After the concert we returned to the tent for our dinner of chicken, lamb, stuffing, potatoes, kumara (sweet potato), cabbage salad, cauliflower salad, green salad, and rolls followed by dessert of trifle and chocolate jelly roll cake. They say this is the traditional meal.

After dinner we went for another bush walk which included some Maori mythology, medicine, a peek at glow worms, and a look at the Fairy Spring that supports the Mitai iwi. We spotted trout and eels in the spring.

We had what I consider a more traditional meal later while in Plimmerton. Kevin, one of the road construction crew staying long term at Moana Lodge, boiled up a huge pot of wild boar (he had killed it with a knife) with freshly collected watercress. He served it with roasted kumara and potatoes. He was sharing samples with any and all comers. It was like nothing we had ever had before but very delicious.

When Doug attended a conference in Auckland in Feb 2007, he made connections with Bryan and Sean. They were looking for someone to characterize the material properties of clay with pumice as a building material for sustainable family buildings in rural Taupo. Doug and Sarah visited the house site on Te Toki Road. Doug took samples of the local clay and pumice back to Boston and had a master’s student do his research on the thermal and strength characteristics of the adobe-like material. We returned to Taupo so Doug could meet with Bryan and Sean and present the results. We visited the house site to see the progress of the building. The architecture of the home is based on the traditional Maori marae. Doug was disappointed that they have not yet started making the clay/pumice walls.