The Local’s Guide: Kokatahi River Valley
The destination reached.
Pat Barret – Westland Walks
Terry and Trish Sheradon 03 755 7967
A rare drizzly day on the Coast, and four friends looking for a leg-stretch, a new place, another taste of the West Coast’s beauty. We tossed around ideas, none taking hold enough to galvanise us into action. Jack pulled out Pat Barret’s invaluable Westland Walks and began to peruse. From the other room I heard the excitement as Jack recited from Pat’s well crafted prose:
“…stunning and almost unknown gem of the West Coast forest, the Whakarira Canyon…”
and I could tell that interest had been piqued.
“…pulse of the river…”
As Pat’s words wove a picture of the Kokatahi Valley, we all began to stir and make ready for a little adventure. Bags were packed with warms and snacks. Drink bottles filled as if there would be a shortage of water on this soggy afternoon up a West Coast river valley.
“…undulating track … rougher overgrown sections…”
We were after a good dose of excercise, so Jack called up Terry and Trish Sheardon (03 755 7967) – landowners – to get the word on conditions after the extra helping of Coast rain dished out over the previous week, and ask permission to cross their paddocks. All go, said Trish, so long as we didn’t want to cross the Kokatahi and head up the Toaroha. The bridge had lost it’s footing, as they’re wont to do around here, and half their cows were on the wrong side.
And then we were off, driving across one of the Coasts bigger bits of flat land behind Hokitika, and up the farm road to park in the paddock as invited by Trish. We set about it at a good pace, sneaking past the still-a-bit-swollen river on the last boulders before the bank and then out onto flats before diving into the bush.
“…not an easy track to follow…”
There were blazes here and there, and the odd permolat, and even a few orange triangles, though they tended to be where the line was already obvious enough. It was where you were presented with an impenetrable wall of that crafty local onga onga tat things became less-than-clear. The onga onga was just a ploy to divert you to it’s wily mates bastard grass and bush lawyer, anyway. So with a bit of lead swapping as the current route-finder got tangled we made out way through the otherwise easy travel up the forested flats. Then it got a bit hairy.
At a certain point the ‘rougher overgrown sections’ merge into one sustained thrash up and down the steep bank through tangles and windfall. But soon enough we popped out on the open river’s edge, and a short boulder-hop later found a lovely beach at the lower end of the canyon for a spot of lunch. Lightening packs and filling bellies we enjoyed a spell in the weather, and watched the river level creep up the rocks, loaded slowly by steady rain earlier in the day.
From the lunching beach, it’s a short scramble and then reasonable track up to the terrace above the gorge. The forest is quite pleasant and almost distracted me from noticing the rift that was now metres from the track, with every cumec of the Kokatahi squeezing through it.
Shortly, though, the bridge appeared and the full splendour of this ‘gem of the West Coast forest’ was apparent. It is truly a sight worth every tingling prick of onga onga and grovel through windfall to behold. The Coast, with it’s short steep rivers, produces some fine gorges, but the whakarira has to be one of it’s finest. Most people who have seen this defile have probably done so from the bottom up, as the Kokatahi is something of white water destination, but it’s equally worthwhile to walk up as to fly over and paddle down to this dramatic landscape feature. For anyone with a taste for more adventurous day walks, I’d put it on the must-do list, and there are several options to head off for a multi-day trip from there.
Kokatahi River Valley and Whakarira Canyon, go do it.
Barber from Floodwall
As I left for work this morning, the Greymouth Barber, a Katabatic Wind which flows out of the Grey Valley and over town, was lit nicely by the rising sun. This is a bit of baby one; in winter it can envelop the whole ranges either side of the gap. The Barber is supposedly named for it’s cutting coldness, or possibly because it can freeze the whiskers off your face. In any case it was a damn fool who built the main street oriented such that the wind blows straight down it.
Weekly round up (slightly overdue)
I’ve had a few derailments to my plan of posting my daily photos in weekly omnibus posts. However, I’m pleased to say that I have managed to keep up with taking the photos everyday, and posting them to Flickr without getting too far behind.
So here’s a bloated catch-up post with heaps of photos. Check ‘em out.
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Notes to come on selected photos. Watch this space.
Photo-a-Day
I’m doing a Photo-a-Day project to try and push my photography a bit and get some fresh creative juice flowing. The deal is, I photograph and upload something every day. I’m posting them on flickr each day, and I’ll do a weekly round-up here, generally on a Sunday evening. This week has only had 2 days in it, of course, what with new years day being a Saturday.
So, without further ado:
Day one. A self portrait to kick the year off.
Day two. A kohlrabi leaf.
Come back for more next week. Same bat time, same bat channel.
The Local’s Guide: Mt George
The view south from the summit of Mt. George, near Greymouth, West Coast, NZ.
This is the start of a perhaps regular feature. I love to explore the place I live, and the Coast is a place that is particularly rewarding to the inquisitive. It’s full of gems that you wont find if you’re just passing through. Basically, the idea of The Local’s Guide is to show off some of the hidden gems. Now, being hidden, and special, I’d be pissing a few people off to go announcing their location. So it’s a bit of a shameless tease. Why would I be so cruel? Well, for starters, I love this place, and that means I want to share it. And I think these places deserve to be shared. I want people to see how special my backyard is. Hopefully, this will be a bit of advertising for the Coast. Tourism is a big part of the economy, and it’s driven by the wild beauty, the untouched splendour, and all that sort of thing. We depend on people coming here to gawk at the lovely views. So I thought I’d share some of the stunning spots I’ve had the good fortune to visit, and maybe encourage a few folks to come for a look-see, and to explore a bit for themselves when they’re here. And of course, I’d be only to happy to take you on a personal tour of some of these spots, should you stop by for a cuppa.
Sunlight filters through sea mist and West Coast forest.
This particular spot is one of my favourites. I recently went for a dawn stroll up with Christchurch-based photographer and Adobe Ambassador John Doogan. I was nervous about whether things would come together for John – I’d offered to take him somewhere special, and I was feeling the pressure to deliver. Happily, what looked like a blue-sky morning with no interesting light or weather had a surprise up it’s sleeve.
A shaft of morning sun pierces the shroud of mist clinging to the bush.
A delicate and fast-moving shroud of sea mist flowed in and up the hills just as we reached the summit, and perfectly timed with the sun cresting the main ridge of the Paparoa Range to the East. This set up a wonderful play of light, shadow, and mist in the trees which was quite breathtaking. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve been up Mt G. but this was my first morning visit. I guess it’s easy to get into the habit of focussing on the sunset living on the west coast. Sunrises aren’t reliable, and it’s a commitment that you want a reasonable success rate out of. I’m getting pretty good at calling a sunset early in the afternoon, but I’m yet to have any confidence in deciding if a sunrise will be worth photographing based on weather forecasts and evening conditions the day preceding. So I was well stoked to come up with a stunning morning, and I really enjoyed photographing it with John.
A ridge's contours are highlighted by sea mist and early morning sun
I’ve not done much landscape photography with other shooters. I tend to shoot most stuff while I’m out tramping with my friends, rather than going on dedicated shoots, and when I do plan a specific photography expedition I go alone or with an enthusiastic non-photographer friend as an assistant. So it was a pleasure to shoot with someone else, to see John’s approach, to chat a bit, compare notes, and also shots after. Especially with someone of John’s caliber, and good nature.
Mist rushed through bush and over landforms as the rising sun casts rays through it.
I was quite taken with the way the mist moved. It was pretty fast flowing, and it was smooth in places, but caught turbulent flow around the emergent trees and more prominent land-forms. We were also fortunate enough to be clear of the fog on our perch, giving the incredible view of the scene you see here. Most of this
Don’t think too much
Deep in thought...
Sometimes I think too much. Sometimes I don’t think enough. Sometimes it’s hard to tell which I’m doing. Then, there are the times where you hit your stride, get in the zone, and get that wonderful feeling of being pleasingly calm and detached, not over-thinking and fretting, but present and critical. I love those moments. Clarity and insight are in abundance; worry, fear, stress and hassle are absent. Time is not much, as Ladi6 titled her album.
This can be relevant to pretty much any area of life. The importance of it can’t be overstated, to me. In photography, over-thinking can kill an image, or a whole shoot, by clouding your creativity with demands and constraints, leaving you distracted or closed – missing opportunities; not ‘seeing’ . Observing calmly, analytically, and thoughtfully is great, and planning and intellect are valuable tools. However, to find yourself beholden to your plan or your preconception can strangle you.
Likewise in other pursuits, I find myself constantly striving for that elusive flow; that place where you can see clearly through all the variables and see the problems for what they are, and the solutions are forthcoming. For example, one of my passions is rock climbing. It’s something which has consumed my time, money, and interest for quite a long while, to varying degrees. I enjoy it for the physicality, the challenge, the places it takes me, and the people I share it with, but also because it’s a past-time rich in allegories for life. Here it is particularly relevant, as there is nothing more significant to my success on a climb than headspace. Thinking too much, or too little, can rob me of all my ability, and getting into the right frame of mind can do more than hours of training or strength or stamina or will all together.
Jack prepares for another pitch high above the Bullock Creek valley floor.
This is a pretty well written about concept, but the challenge lies in the inherent way our brains seem to work. That is, you can’t just put yourself in the mode you want to. In fact, thinking about it can make it impossible to achieve, and is counter productive. Worse still, I find at the times I most need the clarity and detachment, like when I am stressed or tired, I revert instead to the opposite, flustered, desperate approach, which I know to be less effective.
I’d love to hear your insight in the comments, and any recommended reading or info on the topic.
Don’t hit your head
It ain’t that fun. Really. Or at least, if there’s a moderate increase in the likelihood of a head-vs.-immovable-object incident occurring wear a helmet. It’s such a good idea that it’s worth saying again. Wear a helmet. I crashed my mountain bike three weeks ago, riding in the Port Hills, Christchurch. I can’t be more specific with regard to location, because frankly, I don’t remember. I don’t remember most of the day, actually. It took me some time to pin down the vague details I do have, and I think I’ve hit the limit or what I’ll get to know. I was riding by myself, so no-one witnessed the crash, and I haven’t been able to contact the person who found me stumbling around bleeding and confused. I don’t remember meeting her at all, unfortunately. I’d really like to say thanks.
Happily, though, because I was wearing a helmet (now demo’d) I don’t have any long term damage to the old thinking muscle. I’ve just had three weeks of not being allowed to do much of anything. And a sweet scar on my cheek.
A couple of days after the accident, looking thrilled.
The most interesting part of the whole deal is the lost memory. I’m quite fascinated by neurological processes, especially memory formation, and so to have a big chunk of time I can’t remember is quite interesting. As I said, I have gleaned all that I can, and now it’s getting hard to actually differentiate between what I can remember and what I can imagine based on information I’ve been told. I met someone for the first time the morning before the ride, and I couldn’t remember anything about her or the meeting, but the when I met her again, she was instantly familiar. I can remember snippets of the drive to the start of the ride, I think, but it’s hard to tell if I can just remember having driven the road before and then guess about the details. I remember that I went to a cafe at Dyers Pass to get a trail map, and it wasn’t open, but a woman opened up for me and made me a coffee. I know that happened, but I can’t picture her appearance, or the details of what happened, or leaving the cafe to get my bike out of the car, or actually getting my bike out and assembling it… But I can remember riding off up the road toward the start of the track. I want to remember the woman who helped me. She took me to the ranger station, and a ranger named Hamish called me an ambulance. I don’t remember anything about him, or the ambulance, but apparently I left him my correct cellphone number.
I could go on about the details, but it gets a bit repetitive. The one other thing that I find intriguing, however, relates to one of the first things I can definitely remember. I was in hospital, and a nurse was assessing my awareness. She asked me a number of questions, and I knew where I was, I knew (only just) what had happened, but when she asked me the month, I though, yes, I definitely know that, but it wouldn’t come to me. I realised I was taking too long to answer and blurted out ‘June’. She laughed and asked what year, and when I didn’t answer that she told me that it was a Thursday, in September 2010. Later, another nurse asked me again, and I could remember being told the answers, so I repeated them, but I wasn’t convinced. It was a very unsettling feeling.
Now, as head injuries and memory losses go, this was pretty minor, but because I have the first-person experience of it to refer to, I’m really fascinated by it. I’d love to know more about the science of memory and how we explain experiences like this.
Anyway, now I have a shiny new helmet, and a few weeks of enforced rest. I’ve been pottering in the garden, tinkering, cooking, and generally just taking it easy. It’s been frustrating, and sore, but really I’m lucky it wasn’t worse. The moral of the story is, wear a helmet.
