Walking the Walk Part II - Motueka to Westport and Happy Valley

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After a week of 'are we leaving or aren't we' in Motueka we finally made a break for it and escaped the vortex, albeit a bit reluctantly. Heather and I decided to leave the car and push on with prams because we were rapidly running out of time to get to the valley and still had two weeks of walking to get to Westport. Mick was going to stay behind and fix the car, hoping to catch up with us in three to five days. We set off in the rain with enough food for six days. A couple of days out of Motueka I discovered that I'd walked right through the soles of my boots. They were pretty old friends but I'd hoped they'd last until the end of this journey before giving up the ghost. No such luck, though. I kept walking in them for a while but eventually something twisted inside the soles and they become extremely uncomfortable. I switched to hiking sandles, not ideal but good enough.

Our next planned destination was the Laughing Horse where Harvey, the owner, had invited us to stay in a tipi on their land. Unfortunately we'd lost the directions to the farm but we thought we remembered how to get there anyway. It was about five days walk from Motueka and involved deviating from the main road at Tapawera. We had an uneventful few days between Motueka and the laughing horse, just walking, walking. We stayed one night on a family's lawn and were treated to some of the mother's poetry in the morning. It was interesting and rhymed very nicely. That was the first real frost we had, too.

We finally made it to the Laughing Horse with the aid of a bloke towing a boat who kindly offered to take our prams and drop them at Harvey's gate... the road had turned to gravel and my pram was a bit of a dog at the best of times so it was gratefully accepted. The Laughing Horse is a land trust set up for "Horse Travellers (and others)". Harvey has been a gypsy all his life and has travelled extensively around the country with his horses and his wagons. I think they're responsible for alot of the roadside fruit trees that can be seen in the area on the secondary roads. Their habit is to plant all their cores and stones along the way because when the fruit is ripe they then travel around and harvest it. The Laughing Horse consists of Harvey and his family, a couple of dogs, a couple of pigs, some cows and 13 horses. They put us up in the king of all tipis for the night and we ate dinner with the family. Their home is built around a ger design - circular but with a couple of annexes for sleeping and the kitchen. Harvey had lived in temporary dwellings most of his life but finally decided to settle down a bit without losing the atmosphere of living in a ger. Heather and I had a lovely relaxing night and a lazy day the next day while hoping for Mick to turn up with the car.

At 1pm we gave up on that idea and decided to get going. We were back on the main highway in an hour and we wouldn't leave it again until we'd reached Westport. Our camp that night was at Kawatiri Junction and Mick turned up at last with a more or less fixed up car. We spent a few more nights camping along the roadsides and a night in the middle of town in Murchison at the war memorial. I found four four leafed clovers one day so I was feeling pretty lucky by the time we hit our first 'miners' town. We'd been expecting to get a bit more hassles from the locals as we got closer to Westport but it was all very quiet. Apparently Mick got some verbal abuse in Murchison from a bloke with a parrot on his shoulder, but I can neither confirm nor deny that as I wasn't there at the time.

From Murchison we entered the Buller gorge and spent 5 days walking through it. It's a beautiful drive but an even better walk. Despite the narrow road the lack of much shoulder to walk along the Buller Gorge was an absolute pleasure in slow motion. We had pretty steady wet weather but it made for some gorgeous mists off the river. That almost made up for the damp camping all the way through. About 18kms on from Murchison in the Buller Gorge is a farm called Newton Livery. It's another horsey place and Harvey had suggested we call in there. Steven, the owner, is another horse traveller, regularly taking trips with his horses and his restored gypsy cart. He very kindly put us up in his 'spare' house up on a hill above his farm. Heather and I went up and got a fire going to warm up and heat water for our first hot shower since Motueka. Mick had gone back to Murchison to get a press release done and he was going to bring us some dinner by 8.30. He finally arrived at 11pm with a couple of cans of baked beans and some rice. We were very hungry by then and not too impressed by dinner but at least we were warm and dry! We had lovely hot showers in the morning before we left.

We finally walked into Westport on April 29th, having pushed it for 14 days without a break. We were a bit buggered, a bit sick of eachother and very keen to get to the valley - another two days walk. We did a short interview with the paper and got some photos taken of us outside the solid energy office which got on the front page of the local news and then we jumped in the car and headed to Waimangaroa to stay with Jonah. Jonah's a lovely guy who's been very active in the Save Happy Valley coalition. He even lived mostly alone in the valley for 9 months in 2006, so he's pretty dedicated. He was going to guide us in and then take us out again when we finally got there. We stayed in his barn and I had a lovely, very hot, shower that night. His shower is just sticking out the side of the barn so it was in the open under the stars and was quite lovely. In the morning we drove back to Westport so we could walk back to Waimangaroa. It was a wierd feeling. It was also our worst day of walking. Both Heather and I were premenstrual, we both got a blister and we were pelted with ridiculously violent west coast rain storms all day long. To top it all off, we got to Jonah's just before dark and couldn't make the key work. We managed to get in through the back door but it took a while and we were cold, wet and grumpy well before then.

We'd been expecting some pretty savage weather, so said the met service, and were happily surprised when we awoke to clear skies and sunshine for our final leg into the valley. We set off early to avoid walking into the valley in the dark. It was a good seven hours walking time for the day - we were going to meet the boys at the top, past Denniston, at 2pm for the three hour hike into the valley. We were still waiting at the road end at 3pm. Waiting had become a really integral part of the trip for me by this point so I wasn't too bothered. My patience isn't boundless but has definitely expanded through constant use this past month. Heather was livid, though. She spent the waiting time devising many different ways to punish Mick and Jonah for making her wait. We weren't too uncomfortable though. There was a hut with a fire place and it wasn't raining. We'd finally given up and started walking back, thinking that we'd have to finish the walk the next day when we met the others coming the other way in the car. With minimal grumbling we shouldered our packs and started the walk in. It was a pretty walk but very wet underfoot, especially in sandles. We did end up walking the last 15 minutes or so in full dark but with our fabulous guide who knew the route like the back of his hand we had no problems.

We all stayed in the ger, which was a very small example of a ger, but comfortable enough anyway. There was a kitchen shack, frequented by very bold wekas, a wood shed and a toilet box up the hill. Two other happy valley coalitioners, Francie and Gunther, had walked out to meet us and arrived just a few minutes behind us. We drank wine to celebrate the end of the walk and Jonah made a wonderful feast for us all.

Our first day in the ger was rainy and cold which suited Heather and I just perfectly since we were dying for a day off walking. We didn't have to feel guilty for only going outside for the loo and meals. We had snow that night and I woke up at dawn to a very crystal-like view over the valley. The second day was perfect weather, though, so I did a little bit of exploring around the valley and talked to the wekas. I didn't see any of the carnivorous land snails, though I did see an empty shell. Another woman, Frida, had come out to spend a night in the valley and was leaving the next day. Heather decided to leave with her which was a surprise to us. We'd been expecting her to spend a bit more time than 2 nights in the valley, having walked all the way from Auckland to get there, but I guess she had had enough of it all by then. I think there were a few disappointed people in the coalition who'd contributed money and food to the trip expecting a bit of campaigning at the end of it. I stayed one more night with Mick and Jonah and we walked out the long way - a long hike via the ridge line with lots of fun bushbashing and glorious views of the southern alps. I definitely felt the improvement in my fitness after a month of walking. When we got to the top of the ridgeline we walked south a bit, taking in the view of Stockton mine dominating the west. At the end of the ridge, near Mt Rochford, we turned left and headed back down into the next valley. Jonah said that we'd earned our bushbashing certificate coming down the hill/cliff face. It was fantastic fun, mostly involving sliding from tree to tree and dropping over little rocky bluffs. I got a hole in my waterproofs, but it was worth it. I was very impressed with the performance of my sandals; they held up really well on a full day hiking with my pack on my back.

I stayed with Jo for a few days after we returned. It was interesting to come from one extreme of Westport society to the other; activist group to Landcorp farmers. I spent a day on the farm with Jo, mostly opening and closing gates and chasing sheep. The weather stayed pleasant for all three days which allowed me to go out to the cape and see the seals and on my last day I drove south to Punakaiki and wandered around there watching the rain creep north from Greymouth. Punakaiki was gorgeous - it's a tourist trap for a reason.

Now I'm back in Motueka and setting for yet another walk. This one is all about peace and planting trees.

Stay tuned.

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