I'm on Top of the World, eh!

Thursday 13 March

The most serene start to the day... what a privilege to be able to spend time here.

Thursday is one of Jonny’s days off - so he took us exploring. We dropped off my bike for brake fixing with Willbike as this had proved to be beyond even Jonny's skills & available tools.

Picked up a coffee and a snack from Industry Cafe then went up to the lookout above Alexandra so get our bearings. It was a pretty impressive view - but nothing on our next destination.

About 15km out along the Clutha we hung a right and climbed up and up and up, over cattle grids, through bent gates, over enormous stones, rocks and ruts, along the Symes Road - over a kilometre upwards to The Obelisk, the Old Man or Kopuwai. At 1682m above sea level and standing 26m tall, there is nothing higher between here and the South Pole.

The landscape and the views up there were astonishing - the Old Man and his fellow schist towers and sculptures were incredible three dimensional features on this otherwise flat and seemingly barren plateau.

To begin with you are just blown away (thankfully not literally on a still day like this) by the vastness of the landscape. The plateau up here is quite alien with all the dry schist and mosses (see below) and the horizon stretches out for miles and miles in every direction. There is actually a 4WD track that carries on from here to the north west eventually reaching Bannockburn - but it is not for the faint hearted.

The Obelisk, the Old Man or Kopuwai stands 26m high and you get a sense of its dominance when you add a human for scale. You can see the menacing smile and the scowling eyes and understand that in the Māori origin story he was a mythical giant - the water swallower who drank the waters of the River Clutha dry on a regular basis, making the valleys inhospitable for Māori to travel through.

Joining the ancient history and legend was a rather battered Trig Point so as usual we stopped to take a photo for cousin Nick Goldschmidt in honour of Uncle Don and the single vineyard artisan wines which are produced under the Trig Point label.

This monolith was very dramatic - it gave me vibes of the Xenmorph from Alien and creates quite an imposing silhouette against the landscape. Fascinating how the upper part of the rock appears to be detatched from the "shoulders" of the monolith but yet shows no sign of movement.

The pancake layers of schist on these outcrops were intriguing - laid down on the ocean bed many millennia ago and still standing strong on top of the world today.

There were elements of the view and landscape which took me back to childhood holidays on Dartmoor - the schist outcrops mirrored the granite tors and the wide open spaces in between certainly had less flora and than Devon, but the colour looked quite like a heather moorland at a distance.

I was intrigued by this rhinoceros like rock sitting apart from the others - the base comprised the standard pancake layers of schist seen in the other outcrops - but underneath the rocky overhand of the rhino's head the rock was pitted with holes and hollows - like the limestone at the Māori rock paintings in the Waitaki valley. At a lower altitude these would have made perfect homes for swallows' nests, but we did not see any birdlife up here.

Under my trainers, the ground was quite intriguing - the base layer was a kind of schist shingle comprising either large chunks or broken gravelly chips and slices. Occasionally a piece of schist would splinter off revealing a deeper brown colour within, and in one place there was a large chunk of dark pink hued rock. Nestling on top of the schist were a variety of mosses and lichens - the predominant brown/green type of moss was intriguing as the soft mossy surface grew out of a woody, tangled root system which made it look like a fairy tale forest in two dimensions.

On the elevated rocky outcrops were two black lichens, one which gave the appearance of crunchy dried seaweed and one which grew like a miniature version of the tussock grasses of Otago - but in wispy sprays of grey & black tendrils.

Being the highest elevation in the area, the communications industry has taken advantage of the range provided by the great height and built a huge comms tower up here - it's a strange juxtaposition between to ancient rock and the new technology.

It was surprisingly warm in the sunshine and we spent a while exploring & admiring the views before tackling the wild and bumpy track back to Earth from this surreal, alien landscape.

Heading back down the rather gnarly road, there were moments when it looked like we might drive off the edge of the world, and other times when the drop to one side induced extreme vertigo... Jonny suggested Louis try out Downhill Assist on the Pajero to reduce reliance on the brakes, so he selected this option and let the engine do its thing for a few metres - "look, no hands!" Eventually several gates and cattle grids, and a whole lot of dust later, we hit the metalled road again and headed back to Alexandra.

Lunch at Industry in the sun was delicious - pulled pork & brie bagel for us and smoked salmon bagel for Jonny. Then we went exploring round Springvale before Jonny & I wandered back to the Lucky Red House and Louis collected my (hopefully) fully fixed bike. The pinot noir grapes at MacArthur Ridge vineyard were looking luscious so I presume we are close to the picking season. And once again I made a horsey friend in the paddock on Golden Road, though his field companion was more reluctant to say hello.

Louis and I BBQed burgers for dinner, beef & caramelised onion patties from the Silver Fern stand at the A&P show - they were fabulous! We only had a fleeting glimpse of one pusskin at dinner time, then settled in for a chilled evening and a spot of puzzling 🧩 while the almost full moon lit up a glorious starry sky overhead.