Poolburn Paradise

Real-time

Surprise! We have internet albeit very slow to download and very painful to upload, it took me at over two hours to upload the photos for this blog post. But, who am I to complain, at least we have contact with the outside world, thanks once again to Netspeed. 

I can't altogether blame the slow internet for the lack of blog posts though, it's been that and the fact that we've been rather busy doing not much after arriving at Poolburn seven days ago. 

We left the racecourse at Omakau Sunday morning and headed off to Poolburn Dam 35kms away. This is our 4th visit to Poolburn but the first with the 5th-wheeler on the back. We were both looking forward to spending a bit of time at the dam, doing some fishing, some photographing and exploring along the Old Dunstan Road (track); joining a few more dots on the Rough Ridge plateau. 

It's 15kms of  dry clay road, with an unforgiving bedrock base, to Poolburn Dam from Moa Creek. It doesn't sound like much but it's tough going, it's a slow haul out of the Ida Valley and up into the unusual moonscape-like scenery of Rough Ridge, with it's rocky tors and dry tussock grasslands.

This time the dust was diabolical after a dry summer, and the corrugations terrible and poor David swore and cursed as we inched our way upwards and onwards.

If it had been any further he'd have turned around I'm sure, although once past the halfway mark....well, there's no point is there? I know, it doesn't look that bad does it? But believe me it's probably the worst road we've travelled with the 5th-wheeler on the back. I just thank God it was dry.

All was forgotten once we reached the dam and we'd found a good spot beside the water, where we could launch the inflatable easily enough. There are plenty of areas to park although not all are level and not all close to the water. 

We've had a steady stream of neighbours across the bay from us at the unofficial boat ramp...

...and a few crib owners about, but never more than half a dozen vehicles pass by each day.

I got very excited about sunset our first night, thinking that'll I'll see plenty of them over the week but in fact that one was probably the best of them all.

Every day bar two (today being the 2nd one) has been a stunner, perfect blue skies, warm sun but hardly any clouds to reflect the brilliant colours of a setting sun.

And sunrise the following morning has been the only decent one too.

And we've had our first frost of season, it was -2c outside and 4c inside. The diesel heater was given a good workout.

And of course a great day usually follows a frost, which makes the cold all worthwhile. David has been out fishing most days although he's sad (reluctant?) to report that the fish have headed to the depths and refused to be tempted by any number of lures or types of fishing.

Everyone else reports the same...

Although we did managed to catch some koura in the net for dinner...

While David's been fishing, I've had an awesome time exploring the rocky tors for skinks (I was hoping to find the very rare Giant &/or Otago Skinks- no luck yet). This one is still a good find though, a native McCanns skink...

I also found a number of rabbits, or to be more precise they found me. Scaring the bejesus out of me as they lept out of shady holes close by, high up in the rocky outcrops, they'd race like demented idiots down the rock faces doing death defying leaps and zig-zagging off into the sunset or 'hiding' behind rocks further down the slope.

I walked to the dam wall, exploring the tors along the way...

...chatting to these motorhomers...

...before heading up to the fenceline behind where the views from the top are magnificent. I even spotted David fishing on the far side of the dam (click photo to enlarge- you won't see David though, he's too small!)...

There's a crib hiding in amongst the rocks at the top, it's a long way from the water.  I have a feeling it might have been used when the LOTR was filmed here. Poolburn Dam was the setting for the Plains of Rohan. That link is of my blog when we visited Poolburn during winter and found the lake frozen (some awesome photos if I must say so myself!)...

The reason I came up the back way to the crib was because of a flock of merino sheep that were resting below the crib. I crept over the top and onto a rock to look down on them. They are so skittish, they usually take off as soon as they catch a sight of you. 

A couple spotted me straight away, but the game was up when David called me up on the walkie-talkie right at the crucial moment. His voice boomed out into the stillness from my backpack! Game over and they headed for the hills (or rocks as the case maybe). It wouldn't have been so bad if he was calling to report a catch, but no he was just checking in.

The greatest excitement of them all though, was a sighting of two New Zealand Falcons/Karearea; an adult and it's fledgling. They flew through our camp at head height, the juvenile chasing its parent and calling patently for some attention. The next day I saw the juvenile fly onto the rocks behind us. 

I grabbed my camera, pulled on my gumboots, scaled the fence and spent the next hour or so in the company of one amazing bird. He wasn't in the least bit fazed with my presence, he flew in low over my head, swooping from one rock to the next, changing direction and following me when I disappeared out of sight, diving down into the tussock, catching and eating lizards, perching on a rocky point scanning the countryside for many minutes while I stood below him. It was an amazing encounter and a great privilege to experience. 

 There certainly is gold at the end of the Poolburn's rainbow.

Orokonui Ecosanctuary

I have followed the success of the Orokonui Ecosanctuary for quite some time on Facebook so with a sunny day finally dawning in Dunedin we decided to pay the reserve a visit, although by the time we got sorted it was well into the afternoon before we left. Orokonui is located 20kms north of the city overlooking Blueskin Bay, it’s a 307 hectare mainland “island” surrounded by 9kms of pest exclusion fence. The 1.9 metre tall stainless steel mesh fence is designed to keep out all introduced mammals, at ground level a steel skirt stops burrowing animals and a curved hood on the top stops climbing animals like cats & possums from entering the reserve.

And what a magic place it turned out to be, a definite highlight of the journey so far and one we will definitely be returning to when we come back to Dunedin (I know, I know…..another thing to add to the ever growing list of re-runs; this trip may just last 3 years!)

We parked beside this friendly fellow who was obediently waiting on the tray of a ute. while his Dad was doing some landscape work near the carpark.

The visitors centre was stunning; facing north east to catch the all day sun, it fitted into the environment so well. There was a large café overlooking two small ponds & the bush further on along with many nature displays & exhibits on show inside. We entered the reserve through a two gate locking system (so a rodent couldn’t make a dash in with us) and with a well marked map were able to explore in our own time. The sanctuary also does guided tours both day & night.

We made our way to the top clearing first as that was where we’d seen two takahe striding through while we were putting our boots on at the car. Takahe are flightless birds that belong to the rail family. They are similar to our pukeko (NZ swamphen) but much larger and were once thought to be extinct. The last 4 birds were taken from their home in the Murchison Mountains near Te Anau in 1898. It wasn’t until 50 years later in 1948 that they were “re-discovered”. There are now 270 birds at various sanctuaries around NZ but they are still on the critically endangered list. The two Orokonui takahe came from the successful breeding population on Mana Island in Wellington Harbour.

Not far from the takahe was a small open enclosure with stacks of rocks, native grasses & mingimingi growing. This brightly painted Maori figure took centre stage.

And sunning themselves on the rocks in the mid afternoon sun were the largest lizards I have ever seen in New Zealand.

These are Otago Skinks, they can grow up to 300mm in length and are in fact the largest lizard in NZ. They are only found in the Otago region and are one of NZ’s rarest reptiles. I’ve never seen them before or even heard about them so this was a fascinating sight. They have beautiful & quite striking markings which is obviously why Southern Maori call them mokomoko (moko is a permanent body and face marking)

We walked a number of tracks through the thick regenerating bush in the reserve catching sight of the usual bush dwellers; tui, bellbirds, kereru, tomtits, warblers, robins and a noisy flock of kaka. Far down in the valley are the saddlebacks & the tallest tree in NZ; we didn’t have time to walk that route. Along with the kaka noise the bird song in the bush was amazing, how wonderful it would be to have all that noise throughout New Zealand’s bush & forests. On some of the bush walks we’ve done we’d be lucky to hear half a dozen bird calls. It’s quite sobering to realise how far introduced predators have decimated our native bird population.

This male bellbird (koromiko) was singing his beautiful tune from the top of a tall bush, no doubt trying to impress the ladies.

The track came out into a clearing towards the end and it was here that we heard a slightly familar but not often heard bird call. It sounded like a large cricket, clicking away in the tall grass. But no matter how long we stood there we could not locate the source and when we moved it stopped altogether. We decided to see if we could locate this tiny secretive bird up near the takahe, where we began our walk, on the aptly named Fernbird Track. For in fact the clicking noise we heard belongs to the fernbird (matata).

We followed the predator proof fence around past the visitor centre and up the rise to the top of the reserve again…..

….back past the takahe who were now out grazing on the grass in the warmth of a fast setting sun.

And then as we approached the skink enclosure we heard that familiar clicking again. It took David a few moments to locate which bush it was coming from and as he did out popped our very first sighting of a fernbird (matata). I managed to grab a couple of quick shots before it jumped down behind the rocks and quickly made it’s way towards & over the fence and disappeared just as quickly into the bush on the other side, fernbirds are poor flyers but very fast movers.

And they aren’t called fernbirds because they live in ferns, although they probably do, their main habitat is dense lowland or wetland scrub. They’re called fernbirds because their tails look like fern fronds, they’re quite soft & feathery and spike like the feathers we used to add to a headband to make us look like Indians when we played Cowboys & Indians as kids. My next mission is to photograph a bird & it’s tail feathers!

We hunted about & stayed watching for another 15 minutes or so but sadly we failed to sight a bird & we heard no more clicking either. Never mind we finished our visit on a high and I ticked another bird on my list.

The sanctuary closed at 4:30pm and we were the last ones out the gate. The tussock & toitoi had turned a golden bronze in the setting sun.

And as the cloud rolled in from the sea over the top of Mopanui & the birds continued their evening song we both agreed we will be back in the summer and explore all day. I might just manage to get that shot of that tail too.