Tuis at Lake Paringa

Thursday 6 November

Woke to a West Coast morning - drumming rain on Banjo’s roof and no sign of yesterday’s mountain views. Walked into FJ for a toilet stop & a coffee; sat out by the warming fire at Full of Beans with a coffee for Louis and a tea for me - had a video call with my sister Caroline from London, and mid call realised that the wind had blown the flames my way and set fire to the napkin under my teacup - yikes!!!

Strolled back to the NZMCA to pack up Banjo and see if the other Snowy SRC 21 people were around - but no sign of them so we left without making contact.

The weather began to brighten a little as we headed south through Fox Glacier, Bruce Bay & on to Lake Paringa. Obligatory stop at the Bruce Bay coffee cart which stocks the two West Coast essentials - good coffee and local sandfly repellent!

The DOC camp by the Lake was quiet so we took a sneaky spot with a lake view and after lunch set off to explore the area - back up to the Paringa River and down to Lake Moeraki. We found a 4WD track down to the riverside by the bridge over the Paringa River and drove (or rather bumped) down to the stony river bank and went for an ankle breaking walk over the gorgeous stones - Louis even dipped his feet in the river, but it was pretty chilly. I became obsessed, as usual, with all the gorgeous rocks & stones - so many colours, textures, shapes and patterns. One of them even looked like a giant fossilised egg that had been laid by the forests around - gorgeous streaks of ponga green and cream running through it.

Back at Lake Paringa, I went on a wee wander to explore the campsite, found a rock studded with metallic silver bits, a muppet like growth on a tree, a very elevated solar panel way up a tree, a hidden reflective pond and then settled in to cook our new favourite chicken dinner again.

I also spent ages watching & photographing the mellifluous Tui birds feasting on the harekeke flowers which were in full bloom along the edge of the lake. I loved that these beauties became even more gloriously colourful as they stuck their beaks into the flowers to drink the nectar and came out with a golden bindi of pollen on their foreheads!

Got pinged about a supermoon and an aurora alert on our Apps so went out to try some night photography - I failed on the Canon (need to watch some tutorials online) but got some halfway decent iPhone shots… note to self, find tripod next time!

No aurora as the cloud cover came down before midnight, but the supermoon was stunning!