It Swims Like A Duck, It Quacks Like A Duck…..

But it sure as hell doesn’t look like any duck we’ve seen in the wilds of New Zealand before. This male Mandarin Duck has recently appeared on Lake Rotoiti here at the Nelson Lakes. It’s thought that he’s either an escapee from some bird fancier in Nelson or Blenheim or more likely, given we are in the middle of nowhere, someone no longer wanted him & they’ve dropped him off to fend for himself.

And he is fending for himself quite admirably, he is about two thirds the size of the mallard ducks he hangs around with near the jetty, yet I’m sure he is ‘top dog(duck)’. He chases the other ducks out of the way if they get too close and is first to any food thrown to them. He quite happily flies off with the group when they’re finished checking out the people arriving at the lake front.

How stunning is he? What an amazing collection of colours and feather textures on one bird. Nature sure is a wonderful thing. On the other hand, imagine if a clothing designer designed a jacket looking like this, they'd get laughed off the catwalk.

I love his feet, they looked like separate yellow toes but in fact there are black webs in between. I also love his bronze coloured spiky neck ruff which he puffed out whenever another duck got near.

I wonder what will happen to him, maybe DOC will catch him and find him a good home with a pond and other Mandarin Ducks. He must be lonely without other Mandarins around. At least my other favourite odd ducks, the Plumed Whistling Ducks at Anderson Park in Napier, have each other.

While we’re on the subject of ducks, you’ll be pleased to know that there were still nine little ducklings following mum around the camp today. No more losses to report although I shudder to think how many will make it do adultduckhood. They have no fear and spend all day wandering about crossing the road in front of cars and swimming in the pot hole puddles. Along with getting attacked my marauding drakes, mum’s work is cut out keeping an eye on them.

I put a water filled tray outside the van for them to swim in and they loved it.There’s a tiny stream just down a bank to the right of them where they paddle and hunt for food but they kept coming back to the tray to freshen up. I put this tray out for the birds over summer; the blackbirds, thrushes, sparrows and finches all used it.

Next time I looked out I did a double take, either there was something in the water or another family had arrived to check out the free pool. This family have eight ducklings and a mother who means business. She gives me a good whack with her beak and will chase me if I turn to move out of the way. And that’s after I’ve put her duckling back down on the ground!

After a swim to wash themselves, the ducklings settled in groups on the grass in the warm sun to sleep.

But not for long, after five minutes or so Mum was up and off again calling to them to follow.

 I can see it's going to be a busy week for me keeping an eye on these two active families.

Footnote- sadly overnight three tiny ducklings went missing. Three!! I wonder what got them, possibly eels or rats or maybe even the weka that's walking around camp.

Mavora Flora & Fauna

I found the plant life around Mavora especially fascinating, in particular the low profile alpine plants that grew on the tussock grassland plateau. I would suspect that most people would just see a scrubby dry expanse of green & bronze with tuffs of tussock here & there. But stop & explore down low and there's a myriad of tiny little ground cover plants with equally tiny flowers & berries. There is also plenty of dried rabbit poo and half dug holes everywhere but there must have been a major pest eradication programme happening because in all our time there I only saw two rabbits; one we startled when we stepped off the swingbridge & the other I saw way up the back of the campsite running about like a mad thing on the thick covered moss in the forest.

 

Unlike the drive through Nokomai Station & along the Nevis there were only a handful of Spear Grass at Mavora, this one in flower with some nasty looking spines protecting it.

 

 

This is our native bidi bidi, there were a number of small patches at the edge of the gravel tracks. The red was very bright in amongst the greens & browns of the grass. The little hooks on the end of the red spikes latched onto your socks without warning and then when you went to remove the flower ball it fell apart in your hand dispersing individual seeds with their own hooks on to everything within reach. A typical bidi bidi.

 

 

 

 

A montage of tiny alpine ground cover, the ones above look like mini pine trees. The tiny yellow spikes were a few millimetres high, they were obviously flower spikes of some sort. The more mature ones let loose a cloud of brown dust when you touched them. The single tiny red spikes in the fourth photo were flower spikes of some sort too.

More bidi bidi flowers followed by tiny berries on a bush, fungi & a ground cover orange berry in the fourth photo; no wonder our birds are so small, these berries are pill sized. The fungi wasn't as colourful as what we saw in the Catlins but there was still many varieties along with many different shades of green moss & lichen.

I happened to be walking along the access road one afternoon when I got the fright of my life as a bird lifted off the fence right beside me and took off up the valley. As it flew I quickly registered that it was, of all things another NZ falcon -Karearea.  How exciting. I didn't have my camera ready but managed to grab a couple of shots as it disappeared. We saw or heard the falcon just about every day while we were at Mavora. At 7am most mornings it would circle high above us calling with it's distinctive call as it went. We saw it land high on the slope at the north end of the lake when we were out in the boat one day, we thought it may have a nest close by but we lost sight of it by the time we got close.

Another day we watched as it chased & had a aerial battle with a harrier hawk that had intruded into it's territory. David also saw it flying with & swooping around a black backed gull along the lake edge. It didn't seem to be battling with it, just cruising & checking the gull out. These photos aren't in focus but if you look closely at the one on the right that I've blown up, you'll see that he's turned his head & is looking at me.

 

Just on dusk one day David also spotted it land on a ridge not far from our campsite. He came racing back to get me & it was still there when we returned in the ute but it lifted before we could get close. Unfortunately I didn't manage to get any close up shots of him but it was a thrill just to know that he was out there (no pun intended) around us everyday.

If you have been following my blog you'll remember that while in the Catlins, try as I might, I just could not get a good photo of our fast moving smallest native bird, the Rifleman- Titipounamu. At Mavora there were lots of Rifleman, well lots compared with elsewhere where we've seen them. But they were still proving to be elusive, I could hear their tiny high pitched peep as we moved through the bush but unless you caught sight of a movement you had no idea from where the noise was coming.

We were out on the boat one day, another calm day with the lake a millpond when we both spotted some movement in the water quite a way off to the side as we passed. At first it looked like a thistle "fairy" seed head and then like a fish was nipping it from down below making it move. Just a slight movement but enough for us to turn the boat around and take a closer look. As we approached we both realised at the same time that it was a tiny waterlogged bird floating on the surface; a Rifleman no less!  I quickly scooped it up in the net, it was just alive but died in my hand moments later. I massaged it's tiny breast and cupped it in my warm hands then wrapped it in the towel for awhile, willing it to take a breath, but sadly it was gone. So finally I had my close up photo of a Rifleman but definitely not the one I wanted. When we stopped later, I buried it on a stony beach, wrapped in some soft leaves with a tiny stone cross & some wild flowers on top.

Around camp & at regular intervals on any bush walk we did we'd hear the loud & familiar call of the Bush Robin- Toutouwai, and on many occasions they'd step out onto the path looking for stray insects that we disturbed along the way. These are the South Island Bush Robin (of course), they are virtually the same as the North Island Robin except that they have yellow tinged breast feathers. Robins are quite large & very cute, I'm going to sign off my Mavora posts with one on a very special little bird I made friends with but you'll have to wait a couple of days for that.

 

Once again David found the fishing hard going, this was the only one he managed to land & of course it went straight back in. Just before this though he had a monster on line....true, I saw it jump. Jump right off the hook & swim away!

 

And finally just before we left Mavora, I managed to get some reasonable Rifleman shots although I'm still not 100% happy with them. Rifleman are busy little blighters, they were moving in and out of the bush and sunny spots and I couldn't keep up with my camera setting changes. This was a family of rifleman (or should that be riflemen); male, female & two fledglings. I had gone out into the bush specifically targeting rifleman & trying hard not to get distracted by the nosey robins but although I heard and saw quite a few they were all too far away or in too dark a bush to get clear shots.

Female Rifleman

I was heading home through some trees where there is a camp area when I heard their familiar high pitched contact peep and there they all were racing up & down the trunks, along the grass, under the branches & of all things, climbing over & under a vehicle parked beside the wood BBQ. One disappeared up the exhaust pipe, another hung off a bit of string that was tied to the bumper. They ran up and down the grille and in and out of the headlights & mag wheels & all over the number plate picking off all the dead insects. 

 

Male Rifleman

Juvenile Rifleman

 

 

 

 

And after the vehicle they moved onto the BBQ, picking their way through the embers and running up the metal grille behind. Some seriously adapted habits there! But at least I got some shots to replace the ones of my dead little buddy.

 

Mavora Kayaks

We were woken early one cold morning on the weekend by a lot of shouting which was kind of strange considering we hadn't seen many people for a few days. When I opened the door (thankfully in my dressing gown) I was surprised to find a whole heap of people waving at me as they paddled by in kayaks! The shouting was coming from instructors who had a group of five or six people each; there were about ten groups & they were getting them to do a barrel roll as the paddled down the lake, making sure they could right themselves afterwards. Some were very reluctant to do it & I don't blame them as it was freezing cold.

I knew it wasn't the school camp as they had left before the snow arrived so I dressed and wandered down to the end of the lake where they were congregating before disappearing down the river. From the conversations I heard they appeared to be foreign students & when I saw a couple of their transport vehicles it looked like they had come from a education institute.

The river that joins the lakes isn't too long, is quite slow flowing, shallow & wide at the top but then narrows with a few rapids in the middle followed by a fast flowing section before it empties into a wide delta at the north end of the south lake. An easy grade for beginners to learn on.

I followed a couple of groups down the river to where I could hear more shouting, laughing & some big splashes followed by cheering to find that some of the braver ones were dragging their kayaks up to the top of a stony bank, climbing in and riding the kayak down the slope to land with a big splash in the river.

An instructor was near the bottom shouting instructions "lean forward, hold your paddle up and keep you shoulders high, now GO!"

Some didn't quite keep on track and landed awkwardly in the river but they all popped up straight away laughing and whooping. Most paddled straight back over to the edge and hauled themselves up the bank again.

As each group left to continue on down the river the next group arrived to try their hand at "gravel surfing"

And the following weekend it all happened again, I'm not sure if they were the same students but it was the same shouting!

The Many Moods of Mavora

During our two weeks at Mavora Lakes we experienced the full spectrum of weather conditions from extremely hot days through to snow & sleet, along with everything else the weather Gods thought we might like to have a taste of in between!

 

We were tucked down in a valley between two mountain ranges, when the sun make an appearance it arrived late & left early each day. Sunrise was around 7am but it took a full two hours for it to rise high enough to reach the van & warm us up on lake edge. Some mornings it was so chilly before the sun got to us we stayed warm & snug in bed until late. 

 

 

Each evening the sun dropped behind the peaks on the other side of the lake well before darkness fell. And once the sun dropped so did the temperature which in turn was an invite for the hordes of sandflies to come and party. Sandflies were the bane of our time at Mavora, they are persistent little buggers and managed to annoy the hell out of us many times. The security screen door we had installed was worth it's weight in gold otherwise it would have meant we'd have had to keep the main door with it's tiny insect screen shut for most of the time.  

 

We had four hot sunny days at the beginning of our visit and then on the fifth night sometime in the wee small hours we both woke up freezing cold. The temperature had well & truly dropped but it wasn't until I opened the door in the morning that I was greeted with the wonderful sight of snow on the mountains across the lake and up behind us! How exciting, our first taste of snow "Out There". I called quickly to David, who was still in bed "snow, snow!" He thought I was saying "no, no!" and was wondering what on earth had happened! He chose to stay put and view it later; where's the fun in that?

 

During the day the temperature plummeted further. It was cold, dark & miserable outside when the hail arrived collecting in large piles on the ute tray & ledges around the van. It even fell off the end of the awning in a pile on the ground and filled up the floor of the inflatable. After the hail the clouds dropped low over the top of us & blocked out the mountains. Next came the sleet and then finally snow at lake level, our very first snow fall, how exciting!

 

The snow on the ground around us was gone in a flash and when the clouds lifted they revealed a much lower layer of snow on the bush behind and the mountains further up the valley. Winter is well and truly on it's way.

After the snow, and for the next couple of days, came the rain. Heavy solid rain for two whole days, enough rain to fill our fresh water tanks ten times over. Enough rain to soak the parched tussock grasslands and run down into the lake in great rivers of water. Enough rain to dampen down the dust on the gravel roads but not quite enough to wash the rig by itself! We had wondered why there were a number of narrow ditches dug around our camp site. The pumice soil didn't actually seem to soak too much of the water up, we nearly didn't have to launch the inflatable in the lake as it floated around in it's own pool next to the fifth-wheeler.

 

And while we were tucked up inside our warm & cosy van there were still a number of Te Araroa walkers passing through Mavora in the cold & wet weather, I guess when you're walking 3000kms you have to keep to some sort of schedule. After seeing no one about for a day or two this guy gave me a bit of a fright when he suddenly emerged out of the trees nearby- he looked kind of creepy with his rain cover & "hunch back". Don't worry, he couldn't see me taking this from inside the van, I just think he was looking at our van thinking "I wish........" 

Our diesel heaters also proved their worth while we sat out the bad weather. They were very economical to run, we'd have one or the other ticking over for most of the day keeping us warm & also drying any wet clothes or towels. They especially earnt their keep when we showered keeping the bedroom warm & toasty while we changed.

After four days of bad weather, including one where a very strong wind blew straight down the lake & in our front door (better than it hitting the slide out as had been the case for all of January!) the sun came back out, the snow melted and summer resumed where it had left off.

 

Below is the view across the lake to our fifth-wheeler & camp site which is followed by a montage of "Out There". That's us to the left of the right hand side clump of trees.

 

 

And then for the last couple of days we woke to thick fog which quickly lifted as the sun rose. It was quite eerie not being able to see the lake but knowing that it was just a few steps away in front of the van. Opening the door each morning reminded me of the Forrest Gump quote "Mama always said life was like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're gonna get"

 

Vege Shed Visit & the Road to Mavora

The Vege Shed, SH6, Athol-Five Rivers Highway, Northern Southland, NZ

I mentioned in the last post from Athol that we'd be calling in at the Vege Shed as we passed on our way to the Lakes. Which we did. Twice. What a great little place, so much so that I thought it deserved a dedicated post all to itself (well nearly all to itself). The Vege Shed is the on-farm store for Athol Valley Meats, it sells meat (lamb & venison) & produce to locals and passersby from this restored 100 year old woolshed.

Bart greets the customers.

We filled our basket with fresh fruit & vegetables along with two dozen free range eggs (finally some more free range eggs!) Out of the fridge came vacuumed packed salmon, bacon & garlic flavoured mussels- well we do need to have a few treats while we're out of circulation don't we. And next came the meat, various cuts of vacuumed packed & frozen venison & lamb along with a couple of fresh selections for the next night or two.

While David chatted with Heather, the very affable owner, I wandered about filling the basket with more goodies. In the end I had to call it quits because I was unsure whether I'd be able to fit all the cold food in the fridge and freezer. We left with a huge box load of produce & a promise to toot on our way back past so Heather could check out our rig. We'd driven down without the van unsure whether we'd be able to turn around inside the yard.

Back at the van I managed to squeeze everything into the fridge & freezer with room to spare so once we were hitched up and on our way, instead of tooting we pulled in again and I bought another lot of meat & more eggs! Needless to say we have been eating like kings these past couple of weeks. Bart, the Schnauser was still parked in his spot enjoying the morning sun.  

If you are passing the Vege Shed I'd highly recommend stopping & having a look. The produce was super fresh & has lasted us well over the two weeks. And the meat has been exceptional, very tasty indeed. We especially enjoyed the venison medallions.

It was a leisurely drive of about 60kms to the Lakes although the last 34kms was on a dusty gravel road that was in need of a good grade in places. There were some quite large pot holes and the van shook about a bit. We stopped a couple of times for a walk around check inside & out but found all to be in ship-shape order. Occasionally I'll forget to stow something, usually something small like my reading glasses or the drink coasters which will have found their way onto the floor. But nothing major yet *touch wood*.

We were passing through sheep country again and also quite a number of deer farms. This area was where helicopter capture & deer farming began. There was also a lot of tussock covered hills surrounded by green stock crops & hay paddocks. The area is very dry & in need of a good dose of rain.

As we got closer to the lakes, the mountain ranges on both sides of the river valley rose steeply out of the haze. The scenery really is spectacular.

Eyre Mountains Conservation Park

Just as we were beginning to think that the gravel road was never going to end the Mavora Lakes sign appeared and we turned onto the access road. The road wound it's way through a Beech Forest beside the South Mavora Lake & we were hoping we weren't going to meet anyone coming the other way as it was very narrow & winding with many overhanging trees. The sun glistening through the branches and dancing on the road just made it harder for our eyes to adjust to the light difference.



South Mavora Lake

The Mavora Lakes consist of two lakes, North Mavora and South Mavora, they are part of Te Wahipounamu/South-West New Zealand World Heritage Area and are surrounded by an impressive landscape of mountains, forest and tussock grassland. There are many activities that can be done in the area and a lot that are not available in other National Parks, these include camping, walking, horse trekking, walking your dog, tramping, boating, fishing, mountain biking, motor biking, 4W-driving and hunting.

We signed in at the DOC information board & checked out where we might like to camp. This camp site is huge, it's 7kms from the entrance to the southern end of the North Mavora lake and camping is allowed at various areas all the way along the road and off on side tracks. There are spots beside the lakes or back up on plateau underneath the bushline. You can tuck yourselves away in a sheltered area with views of the mountains or park right on the lake. Contained "long-drop" toilets, fresh water taps & fire pits are plentiful.  We decided to drive all the way to the end checking as we went on what might be a good site. We'd decided we wanted to be beside the north lake (where motorised boats are allowed) so we could finally get the Takacat inflatable out and launch it for the very first time.

The end of the road- Mt Campbell behind the park

There was hardly anyone camping, just a few motorhomes dotted about & a couple of tents in the trees here & there. We found a great spot on a small terrace just above the lake & tucked ourselves into the side of the trees. Good protection from any southerlies &/or westerlies that might decide to pay us a visit.

It was a perfect day to arrive, as the afternoon wore on it got extremely hot & with not a breath of wind the emerald green lake looked like a millpond. We were pretty pleased with our camp site choice especially with this view looking up the lake. Mt Cerberus was just across the water and provided us with some spectacular sights over the next two weeks.