Grumpy Alpaca & a Poseur Kereru in Ross

Monday 3 November

A chilly morning with a blanket of mist lying across the lake at 7am; an hour later it had burned away and the view was clear as crystal.

We drove round to the west coast of the lake and walked a couple of kilometres along the Lake Kaniere Walkway - which wildly, is also a L4/L5 cycle track - and back again. The view down the Lake from here was glorious - clear as crystal with snow on the peaks in the distance.

The track through the woods was quite gnarly in places - lots of nice gravel pathway and then chunky tree roots, a tree in the centre of the path, rocks, fallen trees, narrow pathway with steep drops, streams and schist rockfall. Not so bad to walk along, but definitely not somewhere I'm keen to cycle!

Shortly after the walk, we got busy packing up Banjo and heading back to Hokitika for diesel and a final supermarket stock up. From here until Wānaka there’ll just be high prices and convenience stores (which are rarely convenient)!

We tootled south along the coast for about half an hour then settled in at Pete’s POP in Ross. Pete is no longer with us, but a number of his old friends in the community now manage the POP in his memory - the space is quite interesting, up a hill behind the tourist centre, set on a rather sloped paddock with a mix of gravel and grassed sites, and worryingly a sign saying "No entry - old mine beyond here"! Equally concerning was the age of some of the tourist literature in the registration shed - AA What's On from 2018!

Heading back to the village we got harassed by a very grumpy alpaca and greeted by a very waggy Foxy! We knew that the Ross Goldfield Heritage Walkway up to the pioneer's cemetery and along the water race was partially closed due to a landslip caused by the recent rain storms, but we walked as far the old Victorian cemetery which contained some rather beautiful but somewhat distressing old gravestones - average life span seemed to be around 30-40 years, and poor Edmund Louch William Byles Tyrell Case may have managed 6 decades but "died in dispair (sic)" - presumably he never found the gold he expected in them thar hills.

Coming back down the track we stopped to admire the old bell tower, and read the information sign, then realised we were bring surveyed by a rather imperious and very plump kererū, just sitting & posing on the framework of the tower - cue endless long lens shots trying to capture his majesty! Their plumage is an aurora of colour - teals, greens, plums & maroons - offset by the whitest of fronts and startling red eyes, beak and claws. So stunning.

We wandered down the main street of Ross and stopped for a pint at the Empire Hotel which was buzzing with locals, had a call with Sara about Helen's impending surgery, then sloped back up the hill to Banjo for dinner, stopping to admire a fabulous fence/hedge made from old rusty farm machinery along the way.