Author: Mr A
Location: McLaren Falls, Tauranga, New Zealand
It was time to head for the hills. After a few days of indolent pottering around the coast, we packed up the camping gear and set off for an overnight trip up to a small park we had briefly visited once before, but in the poring rain.
We had booked sunshine and shine it did. A glorious day to be outside smelling that distinctive aroma of fresh grass that NZ has. The park is only a short drive from the city of Tauranga (Bay of Plenty on the North Island), so makes an easy getaway for families at weekends… which is why we chose a Tuesday!
We had one of the three camping areas all to ourselves and soon had the little hike tent up, mattresses inflated, and a brew on.
It was time to have a poke about. The plan was to have paddled up the lake to see the famous glow worms, but the howling wind put that idea to bed and we set off for a tramp, as they call it here.
…The Kiwis also call pens ‘pins’…but that’s another story.
Glorious views assailed our eyeballs from every direction. Catherine always says it looms like a child’s drawing of the countryside, with perfectly rounded hills and cows posing in just the right spots.
We spotted a brood of Canada geese goslings – clearly mum and dad hadn’t read the fauna manual for their breed which prescribes no more than 9 chicks. They had a long line of 17! They had clearly been busy little geese.
The wind continued and made cooking dinner on our little stove quite interesting. But we triumphed and Mrs A again managed to turn dinner into a sumptuous feast of chicken saté and fresh veggies with quinoa nestling in a bed of brown and black rice. Flipping lovely.
It was soon time to snuggle down for the night. Remember the part about the mattresses being blown up? So now mine wasn’t and clearly had sprung a leak on one of my bikepacking trips and I was so dog tired I hadn’t noticed. Well I did certainly notice this night, let me tell you. Despite having more padding than I used to, it was a crap night’s sleep!
Wednesday: Ah well…a breakfast of beans and mushies livened me up and we packed away our camp and headed out to see the falls themselves. We couldnt help visualising our friend David, who grew up locally on a farm, poised on the rocks with his brothers all daring each other to jump.
A short drive back to Omokoroa and an afternoon granddad nap seemed appropriate.
…I know..
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Mr A and I drove into sleepy Canowindra to send off the last of our eBay sales, a couple of Christmas gifts to the UK, and return our tyre-pressure monitoring kit back to the factory for testing. Despite fully reinstalling the monitors from scratch in the morning, they still failed to show all our wheels on the system.
We farewelled Jo and Alan and drove to our next destination, Bathurst. There we stopped the night with friend David and his two boys, Felix and Rory, enjoying steak and salad and a good night’s sleep. This is where the Cruiser will spend the next few weeks while we are in New Zealand.
The afternoon was spent doing a little Christmas shopping and a visit to my ENT surgeon (iSGS followers – I had my first awake steroid injection into my stenosis!).
Jenny and David had invited a bunch of their friends over for Christmas drinks and nibbles in the evening, so Mr A and I helped prepare the apartment for visitors, starting with quality testing the beverages – a glass of French Champagne before the guests arrived.
A fun evening proceeded – delicious food and drink accompanied by much laughter and interesting conversations. Fabulous!
The weather didn’t stop us, and we enjoyed the hike with the rain and wind at our backs, with the shower stopping in time for our return route.
We enjoyed a great evening with Barb and Omar, a delicious chicken hotpot and some fine wine of course, before retiring to our bed up on the hill, lulled to sleep by a chorus of croaking frogs. Very relaxing indeed!
We had a delicious breakfast in Berry with Barb, Omar and another friend, Joanne who happened to be in town, before taking our kayak down to Broughton Creek and launching it for a paddle. After all our hard work the past few weeks, this was finally us reaping our reward, and the morning was perfect for it.
Spring has truly sprung here, and the riverside was lined with young calves, staring in shock at this 7+ metre giant boat cruising past. There was not a breath of wind, providing us with some amazing mirror-like reflections.
We paddled just over 9km, before returning for hot showers and a relaxing afternoon. It’s been a while since we’ve been allowed such luxury!
It was great to be back out amongst the gum trees, the beautiful scents of the Australian bush reminding us what all our hard work the past few weeks has been about.
Kookaburras flew across our path, and up in the trees there were the constant squarks of sulpha crested cockatoos and the calls of the eastern whip birds and superb fairy wrens.
There was a bit of climbing involved, and I felt so grateful to be breathing easily again – the first real test since my surgery a few weeks ago.
We followed the pretty Carroll Creek, winding alongside Sydney sandstone.
Getting out there amongst nature definitely relieved some of the stress of the past few weeks, and we are determined to do more of it.
The Auxier Ridge trail took us 8km out and back along a …wait for it…ridge…which was excellent for Catherine’s current breathing capacity and my old bones. It was another great recommendation from our mate Tom, although I think we only managed two of the five trails he suggested!
Bird life was a bit sparse, a couple of eagles graced us with their soaring presence briefly, then haughtily exited stage right when even Catherine looked too big a morsel for lunch. 
It looks as though a lot of people camp out on the end of the trail, despite the signs forbidding it. Pity they can’t manage to carry a few extra grams and take a trowel to bury their waste. Some things are universal unfortunately, we experience the same in Australia.
We staggered back to the car severely feeling the humidity, and retreated by mid afternoon to the wonderful AC cooled Cliffview Lodge. However, we had a bit of strange experience on the drive back, all of sudden really weird noises came out of the phone and car audio system while I was negotiating a tight bend. What the heck was that? A message came on the phone screen – it was a presidential alert testing the national emergency wireless system.
I’m surprised Trump didn’t use it to send a personal message to us all..something self-effacing, well thought through and fact based no doubt.
Mr A did some careful negotiating, using my breathing as an excuse, managed to get them to agree to refund us the next two nights…we’ll be checking out in the morning and moving to a better rated hotel.
We checked out of our damp and smelly Hemlock Lodge and headed across to our new accomodation at Cliffview Lodge. So much nicer! A large, clean room with a sliding door leading to a wraparound veranda with rocking chairs and swing benches overlooking a beautiful view.
We were unable to get to a couple of the other walks he recommended due to bogginess of the road – we really missed our Landcruiser here. But after this walk headed to Gray’s Arch.
More spectacular scenery awaited us there with just the very beginnings of autumn beginning to show in the foliage. We’re just loving being among these deciduous trees, reminding us of our lives in England, and the scenery and walks otherwise quite reminiscent of the Blue Mountains, just outside Sydney.
Once up, it was a spectacular view as we walked over this bridge, and then climbed under it to begin the walk back down.
To reach the underside of the bridge we had to squeeze through a narrow crack in the rock, but the view was worth it. The geology sure is impressive here!
Our hike down took us through more narrow, low and extremely steep and slippery pathways – we were so grateful Tom had loaned us two hiking poles.
Before long we were back at the car, ready to head back for showers and food.
Our first night was spent at a beautiful Italian seafood restaurant courtesy of another member of Catherine’s sub-glottic stenosis support group and her husband, Lynne and Ron, and what a great vibe down on the wharf. We could get used to this!
Some browsing around the shops later we headed off on a tram across town to a discount shoe outlet, even the conductor wouldn’t take our money! It was quite an experience travelling up and down San Fransisco’s incredibly steep hills.
Lots of shoe bargains later, we walked back to the bay and hit an oyster bar – wow there’s some big fellas here and a very different flavour from what we’re used to in the Southern Hemisphere.
Dinner was an early affair (Catherine is feeling pretty beat with her airway so closed at the moment, and we had clocked up just under 12km (7.5 miles) on foot!). We had booked a Korean restaurant just down the road from our apartment and once again had some awesome food. California really has not disappointed.
This city is being so kind to us. I think she knows we have fallen in love.
The dog walkers were out in force, although this guy seemed to have his own pack very well trained.
A big walk back along the bayside and a lunch in the sun – I had been hanging for a crab chowder in a bread roll – and I got it! Sadly no dairy free version of that creamy number for Mrs A.
Off we marched again and caught the ferry over to Alcatraz for a superbly produced audio tour. Thanks to our Napa friends, Susan and Joe, who encouraged us to book the trip – it is not usually our thing to hang out in the crowds but this was great. I wonder how many of the 1 million visitors a year have sworn off a life of crime after seeing this place?
Now I have to admit we then committed a major faux pas for travellers and went back to the same Korean for dinner. Please forgive us, but we had seen another dish on the menu we both wanted and just couldn’t resist. We were home by 6.30pm (16km (10 miles) of walking under our belts today) and packed up ready for our early getaway tomorrow to Chicago. Wild things no longer.
But that’s not the only thing that left us breathless. Plenty of “wow” noises later we took a little walk along the cliff top and immediately noticed the effect of the thinner air – we were at 7,200 feet (3,200 metres). Catherine has enough trouble at sea level with her dinky constricted airway, so at this altitude noticed the difference. My nose started bleeding, something I always seem to experience at higher altitude, and with a nose my size its quite something!
She gave us some great tips for how to spend our day, and after a chat with her we sped off up into the high country of the Sierra Nevada. What a drive it was…again. Check out these views along the way.
We managed to puff and wheeze our way on a short 7km (4.5 mile) walk. We are now at over 8,600 feet (2,620 metres) but motivated by these incredible views to keep going – I had little excuse other than my cold and lack of strenuous exercise recently.
Catherine here is sampling some naturally carbonated spring water, fresh out of the mountainside – delicious too…!
We could spend weeks just exploring this one area – months more likely. The walking possibilities seem endless. It’s certainly putting the US on our radar for a longer trip.
I breathed a sigh of relief (and I’m sure Catherine did!) when we reached the valley floor without incident, and then she captured these shots as the sun was dipping.
We will leave with these photos to remind us of the beauty of this place – it’s busy, yes (although Kim tells us there are 25% less visitors post the bush fires here last July) – but a short walk from our car and we were pretty much on our own – there’s a lot of space to find some solitude away from the crowds that are hugging the valley floor.
Apparently temperatures have PLUMMETED to below 30 degrees centigrade and Princess Tassie is needing reinforced bedding…
Our first glimpses left us again spellbound, as we left behind the tall sequoia trees and climbed into mountainous country. Kings Canyon has been described as a ‘close competitor to Yosemite’ – and being our destination for the next couple of days, we are almost beside ourselves with anticipation of what might be ahead!
We followed the Kings River for a couple of kilometres before we were stopped by a couple of National Parks officials about to detonate some fallen rocks. In interest of our health and making it safely beyond today, we retraced our steps to the car and drove on.
Not much further along the road was Grizzly Falls, plunging deep down into the valley.
Despite the name, there are no Grizzly bears in these parts, only black bears. We have seen many warning signs about them but they are one furry critter we are yet to spot. Our eyes are regularly peeled and camera at the ready.
Back in Sequoia National Park, it was hard to miss out yet more giant trees, helping us feel miniature in their presence.
It is so hard to capture just how huge these trees are and the feeling you get walking here…you’ll just have to come and see for yourself!
