Exploring South Otago- Part 2

Real-time

Continued on from Part 1

The weather didn't improve for our next day's exploring either, but at least it didn't rain. The Sinclair Wetlands have been on our 'must visit' list for awhile, but it seemed each time we were in the area we were heading somewhere else fast. It wasn't the best season to visit the wetlands but if we didn't check them out now we may not be back this way for a long while.

The Sinclair Wetlands form a 315 hectare portion of the much larger, nationally important and regionally significant, Lakes Waihola and Waipori wetland complex which are fed by several waterways.

In the early farming days most of the Taieri Plains wetlands were drained and converted to farmland with just the two lakes and their swamps left. Part of the Sinclair Wetlands was also farmed but from 1960 under the ownership of the late Horrie Sinclair farming ceased, along with the pumping out of water. 

In 1984 Mr Sinclair gifted the wetland to Ducks Unlimited NZ, a wetland conservation group. In 1986 a Queen Elizabeth II National Trust covenant was registered and in 1998 the property was returned to Ngai Tahu as part of the Ngai Tahu Claim Settlement Act. 

The wetland is run under a trust and visitors, for a gold coin donation, are welcome to wander along several tracks.

The longest track leads to the only two islands in the wetland, Lonely & Ram Islands. From these there are 360° views over a massive expanse of wetlands reaching all the way over to the lakes behind. This photo is looking back to the visitors centre and entrance. Many conservation groups and the district's schools help with the clearing land and the planting of thousands of plants. 

The bird life was a little light on the ground probably due to the fact that it's autumn and they're all off preparing for winter or hiding under the reeds away from the cool weather. Although it was disappointing to be passed on the track by a small dog running here, there and everywhere, and then by it's owners casually strolling along behind. No dogs are allowed at the wetland and certainly no dogs not on leads! I did (politely) have my say, I doubt it made any difference. 

I would have been upset had I been tracking this Fernbird/Matata through the flax when the dog came past, it took several minutes to stalk before I managed to grab a photo, unfortunately not a clear one. The elusive and secretive Fernbird, referred to as the 'swamp sparrow' by our early settlers, is a delight to watch stealthily creeping away from danger through the undergrowth.

The wetland flora contained an amazing number of Nursery Web Spider webs. Nearly every flax clump, bush and reed had a small compact web with a large scary spider guarding its precious cargo. Most scurried away but this lady stayed put. Females have a leg span of six centimetres or more and are much larger than their male counterparts. 

The Wetlands has a small camping ground available which would be great if you're wanting to go birding at the best times; early morning or late evening. It has just 4 sites with optional power, and there are showers and toilets available.

It also has the best camping registration board we've seen on our travels. This would solve the problem many sites have when there are a limited number of sites available. There's no arguing who has dibs on a spot if you've paid your fee and signed in your name and then gone for an explore in your vehicle. A caretaker lives nearby and I guess he'd rub out your name if you forget to when you leave.

Our next destination is a good 20kms inland, 20kms of winding, gravel road climbing slowly up through native bush into the hinterland and on to Waipori Falls. It was another place I'd had marked down to visit along with Lake Mahinerangi which was a lot further on and up on a plateau. Someone had given me a tip that the lake was a good bird watching spot. I'll never know because by the time we got to Waipori Falls we'd had enough of gravel winding roads.

The road followed the Waipori River Gorge for most of the way (the river feeds the wetlands down on the plains)- half way up we spotted a dam wall down below the road.

And if I hadn't seen the water flowing down the spillway I would have sworn that there was no water behind the dam, it was so dark and still. It's not surprising then, that Waipori means 'dark water' in Maori.

This is a first for us, giving way at a water storage silo, it's usually a one lane bridge or a washout.

Eventually we arrived at the falls carpark and one of the four power stations on the river system; Waipori #2. We hadn't found anywhere on the trip up where we could pull over and have lunch beside the river so we thought we'd have it in the reserve before walking to the falls. 

After travelling all that way and not seeing a single person it was a shock to find a guy mowing the lawn across the road from the small reserve. More so because of the noise, our peace and quiet of being miles from anywhere was shattered by this guy whizzing around in front of us at full speed while we ate our lunch sitting on the ute tailgate. 

After lunch, and now with two mowers roaring around (one had come down the road from the hill above) we headed off up the short track to Waipori Falls (also known as Crystal Falls), a track that was very narrow, rocky and quite muddy. What a disappointment that turned out to be. 

The track ended at a small platform, we could hear falling water somewhere in front of us but couldn't see a thing through the undergrowth other than a small pool directly below us. I climbed under the rails and down to the pool and there, if you looked carefully, was a tiny section of the falls that obviously came from way up above. I tell you, if I was a tourist on a busy travel itinerary, I'd be pretty peeved off driving all this way to see this recommended attraction.  This would have to have been the most uninteresting walk we've ever done.

We headed back to the carpark only to find that the mowers had been replaced by two flamin' noisy weed-eaters! No listening to the birds today.

We drive off up the hill to check out a few roof tops I'd seen through the bush. It was a surprise to find quite a little settlement nestled amongst the trees including this old fire station building...

and the village hall...

The narrow moss covered road zig-zagged up the hill and around and back down again, past several houses, some of them occupied. This was once a busy settlement established in 1902 to house workers building the hydro electric scheme on the Waipori River (originally used to power Dunedin, 60kms away) . It's now a rather sleepy bolt-hole for a few people who obviously enjoy the isolation.

I said to David I think it had to be one of the most remote places to live that we've visited. I'm sure if you were wanting to hide from the law, it would be a very long time before they tracked you down to here. And yet if you look at the map below you'll see that it's just a hop,skip and jump from Dunedin airport.

We decided not to carry on to Lake Mahinerangi as it was another 15kms of winding road and then we'd have to retrace our steps all the way back home afterwards. 

Once we arrived back at Henley on SH1 (and not too far from our last stop at Taieri Mouth) we crossed over the highway and took a short back road to Waihola, finding this abandoned cheese factory...

...and this unusual front paddock ornament...

...and one more Taieri River Bridge. The Taieri River meets the Waipori River here and they both flow on together for a short distance before flowing through a gorge to Taieri Mouth.

So that was South Otago, down and dusted for us. It's not an area I'd rave about but I'm glad we decided to explore it a little.

We Finally Quacked it!

Ok, well the corny pun is not quite correct because Blue Ducks (Maori name Whio), don’t quack, they wheeze (female) and whistle (male). Whio (pronounced fee-o) means whistle in Maori.

I’m interrupting the timeline of the blog posts once again to report that we’ve finally found ourselves some elusive Blue Ducks. We’ve been searching for Whio, New Zealand’s rare and endangered endemic duck in many places throughout the North & South Island; Tongariro River, Cobb Valley, Mt Arthur, Fyfe River in Murchison and Oparara Basin amongst others.

On Sunday, after a tip from a bird forum I belong to, we finally found a pair on a hydro canal near Hokitika. And the best bit? We didn’t need to get out of the vehicle to see them! We actually weren't going to go looking on Sunday because of the terrible weather which is still plaguing us and the West Coast, but we went tiki-touring and ended up in Blue Duck territory so we took a chance and struck gold.

We had a little luck on our side. A vehicle track ran along the edge of the hydro canal for a number of kilometres. We crawled along it with me scanning the canal and bank across the other side. Towards the end we came to a large settling pond where we found a guy fishing. The rain had just started in earnest but we stopped beside him and wound our window down to speak to him as he sat in his cab out of the cold & wet. I asked him if he’d seen any Blue Ducks, not expecting him to give a positive response. But he said ‘Yeah, I think two flew over 10 or so minutes ago, they landed up there somewhere, I'm sure they looked blue” pointing up stream and out over the large pond.

We pulled away and I continued scanning around the pond edge until suddenly I spotted them! Resting on a log, in the rain, over the far side of the pond. Just after I grabbed a couple of zoomed in shots (in case they disappeared before our eyes) the duck at the top jumped off into the water and started swimming away. 'Darn', I thought he was off to hide against bank in the darkness. But he stopped a little further up on another log and did a bit of dabbling before swimming on again.

This photo below (not zoomed) shows how hard it is was to spot them, they blend in very well- the two arrows point to the ducks resting on the logs after one had swum off. The dashes you can see all over the photos is the rain and it’s about to get worse. (Remember to click on the photos to see them enlarged)

The Blue Duck/Whio is one of New Zealand’s iconic species, it is rarer than the kiwi and is as well known the Takahe and the Kakapo, other highly threatened endemic birds. It’s a ‘poster boy’ & ambassador for our endangered species with many nationwide community protection projects in place. Genesis Energy have a long association in supporting and protecting Whio who inhabit many of the streams & rivers that supply our hydro energy. It is estimated that there are only 2000-3000 blue ducks remaining in the wild and unlike other threatened birds, whio can’t be moved to predator-free off shore islands, they rely on fast flowing alpine waterways to survive.

I wonder how many New Zealanders can name the bird that appears on our $10 bank note? A bank note that is coloured blue should be a good clue.

Our Whio, the one that had jumped off the log, carried on upstream swimming towards us along the opposite bank. Every time he disappeared behind the plants growing over the edge we thought he’d gone to hide but he’d then pop out further up stream. When he got to the narrower canal he started feeding over the rocks and under the water, working his way quickly upstream. When he dived under we could see him moving about on the stream bed before popping back up like a cork seconds later. We decided it was the male although they both are very similar in plumage. And that's now heavy rain you can see on the water.

Whio are river specialists, they inhabit clean, fast flowing streams in the forested upper catchments of the North and South Island mountain regions. They have several unique features; a streamlined head and large webbed feet with well-developed claws to enable them to feed in fast moving water. The upper bill has a thick semicircular, fleshy ‘lip’ allowing them to scrape insect larvae from rocks without injury. Even the ducklings have oversized feet & strong legs and are ready to swim in swift currents and jump onto large rocks & logs soon after hatching.

Whio mate for life and a pair will fiercely defend their territory which is usually a stretch of river up to 1.5km long. Our pair obviously have dibs on the pond and part of the hydro canal. And so far he is taking no notice of us on the other bank. David's quietly driving the ute along the track as we follow him upstream, I have my window down and the rain is pouring in and drenching everything on my side including me. But who cares. We've found whio!

Conditions were diabolical for taking photos- dark water and overhanging trees were the least of my worries. It was the worst possible weather conditions; by now it was gale force winds, torrential near horizontal rain and there's a thunderstorm raging above us. All of which tested my camera skills to the limit, all settings were wound out to the max in the end. But I am more than pleased with the results, even if they aren't that sharp.

At one stage he disappeared, so I quietly got out of the cab (sheltering my camera as best I could) and peered over the side and there he was standing on a rock below us. I’m not too sure who got the bigger surprise- him stretching his wings or me with my shutter speed to slow!

He wasn’t too perturbed….

….keeping a wary eye on me….

….before ducking his head under the water and giving the rock a going over……

…then checking me one last time…..

…..before swimming off.

He did disappear this time and the rain stopped about 5 minutes later (I was so mad with the weather, if only it had been clearer...but then he might have taken fright earlier or not in fact moved off the original log, so I should just be a little more thankful). What a thrill it was to finally see these beautiful Blue Ducks in their natural environment.

We hunted back and forward but couldn’t locate either duck again- the female having disappeared too. David did spot a large brown trout though.

Guess where we’re going today……

Hidden Valley - Part 1

The Cobb Valley is a spectacular hidden valley located 30kms inland from Upper Takaka within the Kahurangi National Park. During the ice age the valley filled with a glacier which then carved the classic U-shaped straight valley, polishing and smoothing bedrock and dumping ridges of moraine (soil & rock) as it went. Today the valley has been dammed to form the Cobb Reservoir.

We had wanted to visit Cobb Valley after our trip to Mt Arthur & the Flora Area of the Park a few weeks ago where we saw on the information board that there were quite a number of points of interest on the otherside of the range, which actually wasn’t that far away from Flora as the crow flies. Of course there were a few very large mountains to cross in between, that’s the problem with leaflets & sign boards, they are flat and give a false impression of how difficult some of these tramping tracks are.

Initially I thought we may have taken the 5th-wheeler someway up the road and freedom camped on the side of the Takaka River but as we had already set up camp at Pohara we decided to do the 120km round trip to the valley. The road was great at the beginning, it followed the river inland and although it was narrow in places, it was sealed for the first 16kms right up to the Cobb Valley Power House.

We discussed whether we’d get the van in as far as the Power House and decided that there would be some areas like the one below that might give us a few issues. Solid rock overhangs or vertical walls tend not to move. This shot is a bit blurred, I took it through the window as we edged our way forward hoping that there wasn’t a vehicle coming the other way.

We stopped numerous times along the way so we could check out the river, David for trout & me for Whio (Blue Ducks). We saw neither but at one stop I heard a familiar honking. It seemed to be coming from above and I expected to see a pair of Paradise Ducks fly by. The honking continued but no ducks flew by and the noise definitely wasn’t coming from the river level. So I scanned the trees above us and then spotted a female paradise duck roosting on a dead tree high up in the forest canopy. And beside her but slightly lower and in the shade was her mate resting up too.

I wonder how many know that Paradise Ducks land in trees. I have seen it before, there was a huge gum tree at my old golf club and a pair of ducks often roosted in it. I’ve watched them fly in and land on the narrow trucks too, something you wouldn’t think a duck could do. Obviously Paradise Ducks love high points, remember the pairs on the picnic tables at Totaranui?

Next stop was the Power House. If you’ve been following the blog headers then this will look familiar. Although the header photo was a side view showing all the ‘spent’ water exiting through the side wall of the Power House (I'll post that photo again in Part 2). I’ve never seen water coming out the side of the building like that before.

David spotted his one and only trout at the bridge, a large rainbow who obviously knew it wasn’t the season as he was happy to stay put as we moved about above him. Another month and he’ll have to be a lot more wary.

The road turned to gravel (custard?) after the power house, it was extremely narrow and wound it’s way upwards through beautiful native forest, we were now in the Kahurangi National Park proper. There were very few areas to pull over if another vehicle approached and we sat on the edges of our seats peering around every bend hoping like hell nothing was coming.

Usually the road from the power house to the dam is just a short climb but this one was 6km, 5 of them at a very steep angle with very tight bends right up to the top of the range. And then, as we neared the top, we struck snow again, just as we did at Flora. In fact probably the same snow fall but luckily, there was just one thick ice patch to cross in the shade and a lot on the side of the road.

Once out of the bush the road levelled out and we were into an alpine landscape with the Cobb Ridge shelter and information kiosk ahead of us on the side of the road.

We pulled up ahead of the shelter and this was the spectacular view that greeted us; the Cobb reservoir stretching up the valley towards the snow capped mountains of the Peel Range. The dam wall and intake are hidden in the bottom right corner, and the building you can see to the left is one of three that house Hydro employees although only one was occupied. The track along the lake on the right is part of the walking track to Sylvester Hut & the Sylvester Lakes, it turns inland and heads uphill at the first valley. The road on the left side is where we’re headed, from the top here, it’s another 11kms to the head of the lake just out of view at the end.

While we were reading the information board I caught sight of a movement out the corner of my eye. It was a great delight to see that it was a weka, a large flightless bird that has a famously feisty and curious personality. He (or she) burst out of the scrub growing on the steep slope, gave us a cursory glance and strode off around the shelter to the sunny side where it set about preening and fluffing it’s feathers.

I’ve been waiting to make a weka’s acquaintance, this was our first weka on this trip, another bird to tick off my birder’s list. I’ve seen them a long time ago when we did a trip to the Westcoast but nothing since then as there are only a few small pockets of wekas in the North Island.

The weka let me get reasonably close but it wouldn’t stay still long enough for me to get a decent shot. And while I was trying to take photos it took off again, straight down a rocky slope in front of it where it suddenly grabbed something in it’s bill from underneath the scrub. It turned around and headed back up the rocks at full speed, crossed the road and disappeared under the bush on the other side, never to be seen again.

Not usually known for their speed, my shutter wasn’t set to "fast for weka dinner” and I only managed to grab a blurred image of what it grabbed. I thought it looked like a lizard but when I uploaded the photo and “enhanced” it as best as I could, it appeared to be a small frog (or, I even thought a chick at one stage). David thought it might have been a weta or a grasshopper. And all of these were suggested when I posted the photos on my bird forum (except the chick; it looked too small). See what you think. Here's the original-

And the "enhanced" & cropped shot- 

While I was trying to do the weka photo shoot, I heard a shout. It took me a few moments to find out where David has disappeared to. He had climbed down a bank and out to this marker post right out on the edge of the cliff. It had some sort of measurement indicator on it and there was another post down below on the dam wall with a measurement too.

We had a look across the road to see if the weka might make another appearance after it had eaten dinner but all David found was, what was probably the left-overs of his dinner last week. The empty shell of our giant native land snail, powelliphanta. A snail that is greatly endangered and only found in a few areas around the top of the South Island and the bottom of the North Island.

I should have taken a photo of this in my hand so you could get an indication of the size but it had about a 50mm diametre (2 inches). Powelliphanta can live up to 20 years & can grow up to 90mm. You can see where a bird has punctured the shell to pull out the body. Another first to add to out list, now we want to find a live one.

…….to be continued- Part 2

Pupu Hydro Walkway, Takaka

Located further up Pupu Valley from the Te Waikoropupu Springs is a rather interesting loop walk. The walk retraces  an old gold-mining water race, which has been reused for power generation from early last century. After a major fault developed in the early 1980s (what engineers call a “flashover”) the power station was abandoned. But due to one man’s determination and the hard work of many, the power station was fully restored along with the water race and headpond, and began re-generating power again in 1989.

The climb to the water race is a little steep and at times awkward for those less nimble footed. It felt like we were actually in the old water race at times but eventually after 30 minutes or so of steady zig-zag climbing we broke out onto a flat and level walkway that then followed the old disused gold mining water race ‘upstream’ along the side of the hill deeper into the valley. The complete water race stretches for 3.7 kilometres along the hillside and took 24 men eight months to complete.

About half way along we reached a lookout point beside the headpond & above the power station deep in the valley below. Here the pond sends the water through a debris collection screen and into a pipe that drops the water 107m to the powerhouse below.

From the headpond to the weir/intake it was 1.7km and this part canal/part aqueduct, which was an engineering masterpiece for its time, followed the steep contours of the hillside all the way. It had a narrow boardwalk running alongside it for most of the way. This was the section that was restored & rebuilt back in the 1980s.

For most of the way, trees & ferns covered our view out into the valley but occasionally an open area on the edge of a rocky cliff allowed us to see out. The water in the race was very fast flowing, it was crystal clear and there were plenty of  beautiful emerald green underwater plants swirling in the current. I looked carefully for koura (freshwater crayfish) along the way but didn’t spot any. Towards the end it became quite disconcerting walking along the narrow boardwalk, both of us had trouble keeping our balance right.

Once off the boardwalk the path opened up, wide enough to fit the tiny digger & bulldozer down which we saw tucked into the bush on the side. The digger is obviously used to clear the canal & the bulldozer to grade the path. Picnic tables were dotted here & there along the path along with marker posts counting down each 100 metres to the weir/intake (which were much appreciated!)
We finally made it to the intake and bridge over the creek where most of the water was diverted into the canal with just a small flow over the rocks and into the steep and narrow gorge below.

After lunch at the weir we headed on up the other side, steadily climbing for quite a way before levelling out and winding our way back around the hills on opposite side of the valley to those that we had just walked.

Helpful information boards were located along the way pointing out the water race across the valley, a waterfall up another valley and a path to a lookout that gave us views back down Pupu Valley towards Golden Bay & Pohara off in the distance.

Finally after 2.7kms we made it back down to the valley floor and the small power station building that had a viewing room and information boards inside. Hopefully you can read a little about the power station and the restoration.

We thoroughly enjoyed this walk even though we were both feeling a little weary afterwards, it was steep & awkward walking at the beginning and quite hard walking downhill on the rocky 4WD track on the way back. But there was plenty of interest and a variety of native forest, ferns & mosses along the way to make it worth the effort.

Once home we rested up on the beach steps with a glass of wine in hand, just in time to watch the sun go down.