All week I kept
telling myself that it was a good thing that is was raining as it
meant that it wouldn't be raining at the weekend. (Don't ask me to
explain the logic of this but it has worked before). I wasn't feeling
so confident though as we drove down on Friday night through hail,
sleet and snow (?). But as luck would have it the roads ware dry at
Tuatapere and 16 of us had an excellent night camping by the sea at
Bluecliffs car park.
An early start the
next morning to catch the tide saw a change of plan, as we awoke to
the Hump covered with a heavy dumping of snow that came well down
below bush line. An annoying start was reading a recently erected
sign which told us that DoC had removed the 'unsafe' bridge at the
Trackburn and recommended us not to use another, which fortunately
for us is privately owned and therefore still in place. As one of
our party pointed out that at least DoC had posted a notice. At Dusky
Sound DoC have removed 7 bridges between Lock Maree and Supper Cove
without posting any warning at all
The walk along the
beach, with the back drop of the Hump, bush remnants with white drifts
of clematis, and the rising sun on your back was spectacular. Several
hours later we arrived at the old School House at Port Craig (20 bunks)
which has remnants of its school garden with flowering tufts of daffodils
and snowflakes. We made camp down by the beach and had a lovely time
cooking over a driftwood fire, watching Hector dolphins leaping in
the bay and listening to the call of Yellow eyed penguins and the
shinning cucko.
On Sunday we set
off following the old rail line track which lead us through overgrown
cuttings that looked like something from a Lord of the Rings set,
to explore the restored viaducts. These were awesome, especially the
ones where you could see through the wooden boards to the bottom as
you walked along. On a side trip to Sand Hill Point we found families
of seals basking on the rocks and the remnants of middens still with
collections of discarded shells and cooking rocks.
After the mud and
sludge of the bush it was refreshing to be out in the open. It was
a beautiful walk out on Monday morning. Again the tide was low at
the right time and in brilliant sunshine we followed our way round
the coast The rock formations, fossils, flowering bush, bird song
and picnic on the beach put a great finish to an excellent weekend.
On the way home we took the magnificent windswept coast road and made
plans to come back to do (what seems to be becoming for me) the elusive
'Hump round trip.'
Just for reference
there is plenty of time to get from Port Craig to Blue-cliffs, via
the low tide route, between tides.
Robyn Bridges
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