Time: 2 hours and 30 minutes
Distance: 5 km
Start: Obscure car park/layby on Summit Road (see map at the end)
Finish: Same place (it's a loop)
Date: Friday 12 January 2024
The first Friday Walkies of 2024. Almost all of us were on board today - a sterling turnout for the New Year. Kim's friend Jenny was also coming along for the ride. Eight in total. Normally we only get such a large gathering if there is a winery involved.
The beautiful 150 ha Ohinetahi Bush Reserve spans Summit Road to Governor's Bay and has numerous tracks that criss-cross through it like a maze. We have walked a few of them over the years and blogged about the Ohinetahi Circuit and Ohinetahi: Summit Road to Governors Bay. The Summit Road Society has kindly published the excellent OhinetahiTracks.pdf (thank you!!) - which today I had studiously printed out and marked our prospective route - a complicated circuit comprising Bivvy Track, Totara Log Track, O'Farrells Track and Kanuka Track.
As a result of some mind-blowing organisational logistics (if I may say so myself), we congregated at the Sign of the Takahe and then travelled in a two-car convey (via a quick toilet stop at Sign of the Kiwi) to an obscure, easy-to-miss carpark/layby on Summit Road. A small sign "Bivvy Track" was discernable in the bushes. That was our starting point. The first few meters is in high grass but you soon hit the native bush. Bellbirds/korimako were singing their little hearts out, but we were giving them a run for their money because we were all chatting 19 to the dozen about our Xmas's and summer holidays, past, present and future. We descended for about 20 minutes to Totara Log Track, took a sharp left turn and then continued on downhill via the wiggly Bush Road Track to the intersection with O'Farrells Track.
Conversation topics shifted to ailments. Aching muscles and bones, deafness and tinnitus. Surely not signs of aging?? After quite a while, someone suggested that perhaps we allocate only 10 minutes to ailments (we had already been going for about 30 by this stage). And, as an afterthought, we should probably do the same for menopause (one of our other favourite subjects). We had a quick whip-round to see where we all were with that: a few peri's, a few posts and even a couple of periods. Quite a diverse bunch.
Ten minutes up, it was time to move on. We crossed O'Farrells onto Kanuka Track which appeared to be seldom used and was covered in leaves. In fact it was "not much of a track" at all. More like a magical Fangorn Forest, and I nearly lost us a couple of times. [Note to self: Pink ribbons are trap line markers not trail markers.]
The track arced pleasantly around in a crescenty (invented word) sort of way and popped back onto O'Farrells, where we stopped for a breather. I went behind a bush for a wee wee.
Now, I don't normally do this, but as I squatted, I spied a notification on my phone "6 unread messages from Kirsten" which, obviously, I could not ignore. And so, as I pee'ed, I read. But HORRORS!!! My shorts had somehow fallen down around my ankles and when I had finished emptying my full-of-morning-coffee bladder, I looked down and saw that I had inadvertently micturated all over them. The wet patch was simply enormous. I stared in disbelief.
What was to be done? I pulled up my (dry) knickers, stepped out of my shorts and went back to the others. "Something terrible has happened!!" I blurted out. They looked at me in alarm - but when they heard the story, they burst out laughing. In fact, Jane laughed so hard that she fell over and bruised her knee and damaged her carefully collected leaf skeleton. As if it were the most normal thing in the world, she lept back up again straight away without blinking an eye.
Once we had ascertained that Jane was ok, everyone offered me spare clothes: tanktops and jackets - kindly gestures to be sure - but highly unsuitable. Especially the suggestion that I put my legs through the arm holes. Witches britches. So I returned to the shorts and, as best I could, flushed the wees away with water from my water bottle. Then there was nothing for it but to return my empty water bottle to my bag and put on my wet shorts.
Traumatised (well, I was anyway) we set off again along O'Farrells (initially in the wrong direction) looking for the turn-off to Bivvy Track -which was actually only about 50 meters (northwards) from where we had stopped for a breather at the top of Kanuka Track. Up, Up, Up Bivvy Track we went, then a sharp left turn back onto Totara Log Track again. I was walking slightly bow-legged to avoid chaffing. We were following the track markers (red dots painted onto the trees) in the bush until we popped out onto open grassland and stopped for snaps of those stunning Lyttelton Harbour views. We could look back and see the beautiful native bush we had been walking through, clusters of dead tree skeletons were sobering reminders of the Port Hills Fire in 2017.
We sidled along the grassy slope and then took the ridge up to Ella's track. By the time we got to the top, Carolien was sporting the most spectacular bruise on her elbow. Apparently it happened shortly after the stinkhorn fungus. Once we had ascertained that Carolien was ok, everyone started happily comparing their scrapes and scratches. I flourished a sub-standard "first aid kit", but no-one was up for that. I splayed out my shorts in the wind and they started to dry.
We made it back to the car in one piece. Exiting the carpark was interesting though because the car wheels were spinning in the gravel like a Boy Racer's. A bit of reversing and another go saw us right. Kim negotiated it perfectly in the Camry without batting an eyelid.
The Sign of The Kiwi Cafe was packed and we parked up the road and walked down with cyclists whizzing by. We managed to get that long table around the back that nobody knows about. I sat on my jacket and Jenny told us about her amazing and enviable job that involves adding mud and stains to textiles, hanging out with famous people and swinging from a trapeze. We listened, all agog, with mouths open and eyes like chapel hat pegs.
Then we drove home, dropping off people one by one. It had been a superb -albeit slightly dramatic- outing. Next time I shall take my shewee. Happy New Year 2024 e hoa mā!!!
Footnote: Kirsten's 6 messages: a discussion and translation of the kīwaha "Nau mai te hapa". "Bring on the mistakes". Pretty topical.
