A NICE STROLL

We went for a long walk this morning. The one we did we haven't done since before the big storm in February. It is the Little Munro Bay walk to Reotahi. This is a stunner, folowing the bay around past the marine reserve and the historic (abandoned) freezing works to do a semi-circle and return to our house. We discovered that the track was closed.

Carefully reading the big sign on the bigger fence sealing off the track we not so carefully made our way around it and continued on the track. There were a few washouts and clay and rock falls that whilst impeding easy walking could still be negotiated. Half way along though we came across a massive avalanche. Half of the hill behind Mount Albury has come down taking away very large trees along with track leaving  a jumble of rocks, bush, trees and debris which we negotiated our way through. As we were forced to go lower than the track used to we discovered some amazing boulder formations at the waters edge and narrow canyons and caves. Making our way up again we rediscovered the track only to find it has disappeared again and a giant chasm has been formed that definitely wasn't there a couple of months ago. Progress would have been impossible if it hadn't been for the big rope that someone had thoughtfully provided. The rope is like one of those massive hawsers that tie ships to wharves only made of rope-twine. It is tied to a tree at the top of the chasm and dangles down to almost the bottom.

Taking turns we reverse abseiled up kicking our feet against the bank and hauling ourselves up to the top. I'm proud of the Old Girl doing it but she has abseiled before and is pretty adventurous. At the top the remains of the walkway complete with some wired steps just disappear over the edge - dangerous. The path at the top (going the other way) became more walkable as we went along and, near the old freezing works was back to normal. Its about another 40 minutes from here to our place so when we arrived home we felt that we had had a pretty good work-out. We have friends coming to stay at Easter so we'll suggest a nice stroll and take them on this walk .

A nice troll