Lock(e) us in!

March 1

Morrison Footbridge campsite to Locke Stream Hut

KM 2147.5

Distance: 23km 

Elevation: ascent 447m, descent 242m

Steps: 35,300

Time: 7:45am - 3:45pm

While preparing last night's dinner on a fallen log at our makeshift campsite we had a chunky kereru watch over us, probably pondering why we take so long to prepare our food when food is just hanging off the branches all through the forest. Later a weka closely examined the surrounds of our tent, clearly it's learned that human food is edible. (Sorry, no photos, it was too camera shy, even though it engaged Eliza in a stare-off through the mesh of the tent). 

More stream travel and crossings today. We've written about this before, so you know it makes for slow travel walking on uneven ground and is hard on the soloes of the feet. Although, our new shoes performed well and neither of us developed blisters (remember the first two days of our journey?).

There are a lot of different types of rock coming down this river. It would be awesome to have a geologist along with us, but I fear the journey would take about 5 times as long, needing to stop and investigate every interesting rock (no shade - I would love that sort of journey! We do it with birds right now, anyway...) We are curious whether we have seen any pounamou/jade/greenstone/nephrite, the picture above has one candidate. Neither of us is confident in spotting this stone on our own, though.

A major highlight of the day was this karearea (NZ falcon) sitting on a poiece of driftwood only 40m from us! (You might have to zoom in) We'd stopped to check our map when Eliza spotted it. It just sat there watching us, us watching it, and didn't leave. It really didn't seemed concerned by us at all. This is the closest we've ever been to one of these amazing raptors. Fun fact, in the early 2000s DNA research discovered that falcons share a common evolutionary ancestor with parrots, and are not closerly related to hawks and eagles etc.

With rain in the forecast we rushed on up the river, soon entering a section of silver beech forest for a short time. We found possibly the largest clump of funghi we've seen on trail yet.

Much of the remainder of the track was over grass covered river flat where the track was non-existent. Where we did find something resembling a track it was more like a trace in the grass from the last people to pass through, but because we knew to follow the river valley we just made our own path. 

We didn't encounter any other walkers on the trail today, except for two people on the far side of the river which made us question if we were on the correct side. We did stop and chat to a hunter heading past us to his campsite. We had a brief chat about hunting, and the West Coast settlements struggling without international tourism. He was hopeful that with the Australian border opening up this week that things would start looking up for the likes of Greymouth, Fox Glacier and Franz Josef.

As we were both tiring at the end of the day the hut came in to view to our great relief. Although this is officially Locke Stream Hut the hand made sign on the door says Rat Stream Nest. By all accounts there used to be a rat problem here but there's plenty of poison tabs around so hopefully we won't have to deal with any tonight.

However, as usual, we will have to deal with sandflies, and there's no mesh screens on the door or windows. Both of us are wearing long sleeves and longjohns for protection, even though the temperature is quite warm in the hut. 

Soon after we arrived a light but steady rain set in. This was forecast but helpfully waited until we had shelter. At this stage no one else is in the hut, but it's still early (5pm). It's quite relaxing sitting in the common area looking out at the rain falling onto the verdant beech forest, and listening to it pelting the tin roof. The rest of the night will involve cooking dinner, playing cards, writing in the hut book, reading, then heading to bed at around 8pm. It's not a complicated lifestyle.