{"id":13853,"date":"2024-03-20T11:23:30","date_gmt":"2024-03-20T18:23:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mountaininterval.org\/journal\/?p=13853"},"modified":"2024-03-20T22:24:57","modified_gmt":"2024-03-21T05:24:57","slug":"extinct-volcanos","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/mountaininterval.org\/journal\/2024\/03\/20\/extinct-volcanos\/","title":{"rendered":"Extinct Volcanos"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The trip wasn’t supposed to start on the Banks Peninsula. Originally the plan was to arrive in Christchurch and head up the mountains to Arthur’s Pass to do some hiking. However, there aren’t a lot of lodging options up there, and of the ones I liked, the first one was fully booked by a tour group. The second was being renovated and their website has said “opening later this year” since last October. There was one other I liked, an Airbnb, but from its description I got the distinct impression that the owner was lonely and renting out rooms to entice company to stay with her. And thus it was that my attention shifted from Arthur’s Pass to the extinct volcanoes surrounding Akaroa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I woke up well before sunrise this morning, and after checking the tide charts made an early departure for the Onawe Peninsula, a landmass that is probably no more than 200m wide at its widest point, that juts nearly a mile out into the ocean, but that is cut off from land as the tide rises. There’s a 250 foot hill near the end with the remains of a Maori Pa (fort), and amazing views of the harbor. All in all a pretty nice place to watch the sunrise and a really nice way to start the day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After returning to the B&B for a breakfast of bacon, eggs and sausage that my cholesterol-obsessed doctor must never hear about, it was off to the Hinewai Reserve<\/a>, over 3000 acres of what was mostly former farmland that has been restored since the 1980s to native vegetation, much of it by a man named Hugh Wilson who is now in his 70s, still travels everywhere by bicycle, and who I assume is responsible for the signs throughout the reserve that ranged from a “max clearance: 1.65m” sign next to a portion of the trail with a low overhanging branch, to a warning about “no intelligent life” being found in cars (there was something about someone backing over some bushes), and a poignant one noting that a botanist cries every time a hiker carelessly breaks a fern frond. Aside from the signs, there were miles of walking trails through the dense rainforest, and it was a joy to walk through woods filled with plants and animals that were wholly unfamiliar, although I’m likely to be a bit stiff tomorrow after 20,000 steps through mostly vertical terrain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The day concluded with a visit to pet a few of the local sheep (the B&B sits on 1200 acre farm), another short-ish hike up to a waterfall near the B&B, and a dinner of seared tuna and scallops in town. Tomorrow it’s off to the “Southern Alps” for more hiking, glacier viewing, and stargazing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Two more items for the record. First, I only turned on the windshield wiper when trying to engage the turn signal about fifty percent of the time today, so there may yet be hope that I can learn to drive on the left without being a menace to others. Second, in case anyone is wondering, as far as I can tell the water in the toilet bowl goes in the same direction as it does in the northern hemisphere when flushed. Mark Rober can provide the science debunking that particular myth<\/a>, but I was still kind of hoping to see the water going the wrong way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Banks<\/p>\n

In case anyone is wondering how I chose to visit the Banks Peninsula, I was looking at the map and said “what is THAT???” Photo credit: NASA via Wikimedia Commons<\/a><\/div>\n\n\n\n

\"Silvereye,<\/p>\n

Silvereye in Hinewai Reserve. Bear with me while I learn the names of the birds here through my magical process of “photograph it and upload the photo to Google image search to get an ID”.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The trip wasn’t supposed to start on the Banks Peninsula. Originally the plan was to arrive in Christchurch and head up the mountains to Arthur’s Pass to do some hiking. However, there aren’t a lot of lodging options up there, and of the ones I liked, the first one was fully booked by a tour … Continue reading “Extinct Volcanos”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[76,77,30],"class_list":["post-13853","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-journal","tag-2024-walkabout","tag-new-zealand","tag-photography"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/mountaininterval.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13853","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/mountaininterval.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/mountaininterval.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mountaininterval.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mountaininterval.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13853"}],"version-history":[{"count":29,"href":"http:\/\/mountaininterval.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13853\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13882,"href":"http:\/\/mountaininterval.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13853\/revisions\/13882"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/mountaininterval.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13853"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mountaininterval.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13853"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mountaininterval.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13853"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}