Cathedral Plateau: Part 1

As you traverse Tasmania’s Overland Track, a walk so renowned for mountains, few peaks are as constant and commanding as Cathedral Mountain. Throughout the middle days of the walk the 1400m mountain variously lurks, looms and towers to the eastern side of the track, its 800m buttresses as much gothic fortress as cathedral. Yet despite this prominence, Cathedral is one mountain that Overland Track walkers never summit. It’s not that it’s all that difficult to climb, but if you were trying it from the Overland Track, any stage Irishman would tell you “I wouldn’t be startin’ from here!”

[Cathedral Mountain from the Overland Track, near Kia Ora]

Rather than a single peak to be “bagged”, Cathedral is actually a substantial plateau, and one to be savoured. It’s almost unique in the highlands of Tasmania, being a virtual mountain/island, with steep access on all sides. (Only the Ben Lomond plateau compares.) Like some vast dolerite cake, albeit one that’s collapsed towards its eastern edge, Cathedral's cliffs guard it against casual tasters.

 

With this in mind, a group of us planned to spend five days exploring the plateau, coming at it from the more accessible north-eastern route. Once that was settled, organising it should have been easy, but for one word: pandemic. In the lead up to the February walk Covid hovered over the party, eventually hitting one of our group. Fortunately Libby’s case was mild, and her recovery swift enough for her to join us on the walk, though not without a warning us that she might be slow. That suited the rest of us, who already ceded her about as many years in age as we did kilograms in weight. 

 

Most of us had been to Cathedral before, though not in ideal conditions. There’s more of that story starting here But crucially TimO had never been there, and his strong inclination to always explore new places made this a must-do. Another plus was the large high pressure system that looked like floating over us for most of the walk, promising perfect plateau wandering weather.

 

The four of us from the south first spent a relaxing night at Tim D and Merran’s cottage in Sheffield, getting fuelled up on Tim’s famous homemade pizzas. The next morning we started out fresh and early, as there was no disguising that we had some hard work ahead of us. The walk starts at around 600m altitude, and our first camp, at Grail Falls, is around 1000m. At least the weather was cool, with a solid cloud cover yielding occasional drizzle. We hoped this was just the tail of a cold front, and that it would soon give way to that promised high.

[Jim, Tim and Libby ascend through myrtle forest]

The walk started in a scrubby, weed-infested former logging coupe. Jim added some ‘colour’ by sharing an ear-worm with us. It was an old Marty Robbins song, but the only words he knew were part of the chorus: “cool, clear water.” Even that he managed to misquote, adding a jovial note to our climb. Soon we were walking through more pleasant sclerophyll forest, the drizzle persisting, but not enough for rainjackets. As we gained altitude the colours changed from the grey green of eucalypts to the deep green of myrtle rainforest. Our lunch stop was supposed to be at a small tarn we’d visited before. But if we’d been hoping to top up our water, we were in for a disappointment. The ‘tarn’, empty of water, was instead a large grassy bowl. Still, this “disappearing tarn” was a welcome stop after the steepish climb.

[Jim confirms the tarn is dry]

Following the break it was a pleasant surprise to soon find ourselves descending towards Chapter Lake and Grail Falls. We’d have been even more delighted had the route been a little less knee-jarring. “Just think, we’ve gotta come back up this!” Jim moaned, and we all filed that away in the “worry about that later” box.

 

Once we’d set up tents in the stunted myrtles near Grail Falls, TimO started grappling with Tim D’s inReach satellite phone. As Tim and Merran D. would be coming in late, after their work day, they’d suggested we use their sat. phone to send a message about where we’d stopped for the night. We had dobbed TimO in for that job, though using it proved easier said than done. The rest of us had a little mirth at TimO’s expense as he tried to work out the cryptic menu system. “You had ONE JOB Tim!” we called out encouragingly as he fruitlessly pointed the device towards the heavens. 

[TimO tries to get the satellite phone to connect]

The next surprise was our consensus that a little tent-bound nap would go down well. This seemed fair enough for Libby, who was only just back into exercising after Covid. For the rest of us, our justification was that there was no point in eating dinner too early, as Tim and Merran were probably coming in late (though, as we reminded TimO, he hadn’t had any inReach confirmation of this). Also the drizzle was now verging on rain. On the personal level, I realised that for the last few weeks I’d had background anxiety in organising this trip, especially in relation to Covid. But now my whole being was beginning to relax into this wonderfully peaceful place. 

 

Next thing I knew an hour had passed, and Jim was calling us out of our tents for pre-dinner nibbles.  Despite our best intentions, pre-dinner soon became dinner, and we would have been ready for bed by 6:30 if we hadn’t decided to explore the nearby lake and falls. We had never seen the falls this dry, with only a small flow tumbling over the precipice. On our last visit the falls were thundering, making conversation difficult.

[Libby at the base of Grail Falls]

[On the shores of Chapter Lake]

After our wander we started a ‘book’ on when we reckoned the other two would arrive, chivvying TimO from time to time to see if he’d got a reply to his inReach message yet. He kept muttering in the negative, and gradually, one by one, our guessed times passed. Eventually, around 8:30, we decided we may as well give up and go to our tents. We’d let them rouse us when they got here, if that transpired.

[Tim and Merran arrive early the next morning]

As it turned out, that ‘rousing’ didn’t happen until just after 7 the next morning, when Tim and Merran walked into camp before we’d even got up. Their story tumbled out over breakfast. The short of it was that they’d been delayed, and had decided to camp part way in rather than trying to get up here in the dark. We were glad to have the six of us together, without too much drama, ready to walk up to the plateau proper. And as for their reply to TimO’s inReach message, it had apparently gone astray. It seemed it was through no fault of TimO – though that didn’t stop us gently ribbing him about it for the next day or two.

Little Lives: Part 2 - The Nattai Wilderness

“Shorty” the campervan was next due to take us to Sydney. Lynne had spent a lot of time and effort getting ready for a reunion there. It had already been postponed twice due to the virus, so we were hoping this would be third time lucky. But, with just a few days up our sleeve, the Coronavirus outbreak in the city was growing. And so we cautiously waited before committing to enter greater metropolitan Sydney. 

 

For a couple of days we holed up in a Lithgow caravan park, and listened to news of the growing COVID outbreak in Sydney. Perched there on the heights of Lithgow, we felt like Frodo and Sam on the Emyn Muil, waiting to enter Mordor. Our daughter Sally caught onto this and messaged us using Boromir’s words: “One does not simply walk into Mordor!”

[Shorty hides out near Lithgow]

We didn’t, and neither did we drive there. Instead we turned tail and sadly retreated from “Mordor” to the rather more friendly town of Mudgee. While there, apart from a bit of wine tasting and bike riding, we learned that the NSW premier had put Greater Sydney into lockdown. Had we gone there, we’d have been there still (as of early August, and counting!)

 

* * *

 

Chastened, we re-jigged our plans – again. We’d organised to catchup with my brother after Sydney, when he’d be back from his own virus-dodging trip. So we firmed up that plan, and a few days later arrived at his place in the NSW Southern Highlands. He lives outside, though not a great distance from, greater metropolitan Sydney. It’s strange to run such a filter over every destination, but we had become very used to it. My brother, a retired doctor, is well practiced at it staying Covid-safe too. So once at his place, we hatched a plot to go literally far from the madding crowd: a day walk into the Nattai Wilderness.

[Ian and Lynne start our Nattai walk]

Tasmania has a way of turning we Tasmanians into wilderness snobs. Partly it’s the fact that we live on a substantially wild, mountainous island thrust into the southern seas, away from the fray of mainland Australia, and beyond the easy reach of over-development (though that threat is growing). And partly it’s that around 20% of our island, nearly 1.6 million hectares, is designated as World Heritage Wilderness. 

 

It’s a vast wilderness I will never encompass, no matter how long I live. But I have taken great pleasure in showing many people, including my brother Ian, just some of the wonders of Tasmania’s wilderness. Now it was his turn to show us one of the hidden gems of his area, specifically the Nattai Wilderness. 

[... let the wilderness begin]

When I've flown into Sydney I have sometimes looked down on a deeply incised wild area and wondered: is that the Nattai Wilderness? Back in the 1970s, when I lived and studied in NSW, I’d camped and bushwalked on the fringe of the area. But I had never knowingly been into what in 1991 became the Nattai National Park. Parts of the park, including where we would walk, were later officially designated as wilderness. Of course for millennia, the Dharawal and Gundangarra Aboriginal peoples called this home rather than wilderness. Our day walk would take us past sandstone overhangs that would have been used as shelter for thousands of years. The country still feels old and remote, despite being relatively close to a large city.

 

For Lynne and I the sandstone felt very familiar, since we were both brought up on sandstone country. Ian led us first along a fire trail, and then onto a narrower walking track. He was lamenting that we were seeing this country so soon after a massive wild fire. And he was apologetic that the wildflowers weren’t really out yet. Yet somehow we found more than enough to slow us down, oohing over a late-blooming flannel flower here; ahhing over a banksia there. 

[A selection of winter wildflowers in the Nattai]

The country felt similar to the Blue Mountains, and I knew that our track would inevitably lead us to a lookout, although lookdown would be more fitting name. Because, just as in the Blue Mountains, this is more gorge country than mountain country. We reached the edge of the plateau, and could feel the air expand around us before we saw the first bit of gorge beneath us. Ian suggested we push on to the lookout proper, maybe 5 minutes further on. 

[Worth the wait: Ahearn Lookout]

It was worth it. Ahearn Lookout is a grandstand to some vast, wild country. The Lion King wouldn’t have looked out of place posing here, if you accepted replacing savannah plains with vast and steep forested slopes. At the bottom of this defile was the Nattai River, here and there flashing reflections towards us. And beyond that we could make out further gorges, including that of the distant Wollondilly River.

[Looking south down the Nattai Gorge]

We perched on the edge of this vastness, 1 million hectares of wild country stretching all the way to Kanangra Walls, the Blue Mountains, the Wollemi, the Colo, and beyond. In such a place our quiet consumption of a humble sandwich and a coffee somehow felt like a feast. I was never great with equations, but here I could work out that place + movement, over time equalled deep satisfaction. And especially when that place was a wilderness. That's when a day can feel like another little life.

[Special thanks to my brother Ian for introducing us to the Nattai Wilderness.]

[The perfect spot to feast on wilderness]

Little Lives: Part 1 - Tumbarumba

My argument went like this. “Shorty”, our VW campervan, our tinyhouse on wheels and additional access to adventure in these covid-constrained times, would allow us to effectively move house whenever we fancied. Want a house by the sea? We just drive to the coast and make it our short-term home. Or a cabin in the mountains? Simply drive into the hills and stay awhile. There we could experience “little lives”, snippets of “what-if” life, in places we’d always wanted to be.

["Shorty" has a practice run]

I thought it sounded good, but Lynne wasn’t so convinced. She’d always thought we’d move by the beach after retirement, and my “little lives” idea sounded like a fob off. (I guess we’ll be having that “move to the coast” discussion for a while yet.) In the meantime we agreed that some adventures in “Shorty” were overdue. We had acquired a short wheelbase VW Transporter van, and had it converted into a campervan by the good folk at Achtung Camper in Geelong, Victoria. Being the SWB version, we nick-named it “Shorty”, and so far the name has stuck.

[Sheep near Tumba living contented little lives]

After a series of shakedown trips within Tasmania, we felt ready to venture to the “big island”, mainland Australia, via the Spirit of Tasmania ferry. A reunion in Sydney with people we shared our youth with some 45 years ago was the impetus. Around that event we planned some cycling, some walking, some beach bumming, and some family visits. But Sydney, in late June: let that sink in! 

 

Right from the start we sensed this would be a different trip in terms of forward planning. Melbourne was in partial COVID lockdown when we arrived, but we were permitted to transit Victoria, stopping only for food, fuel and toilet breaks. So our plan for a leisurely trip to some Goulburn Valley wineries, and a few days sipping, riding and living the “little life” dream of being winemakers, went west. Actually it went north, as we made a bee-line for the NSW border. We didn’t stop until we got to Tumbarumba.  

[Yep - Tumbarumba]

 

Of all the border towns on offer, why Tumbarumba? Well, to be fair the Riverina Highlands are lovely, and they do have vineyards. But the main attraction for us was a new 21km rail trail from Tumbarumba to Rosewood (or “from nowhere to nowhere” as someone unkindly put it). Tumbarumba’s beauty is on the subtle side. It nestles in some pretty hills, though calling them “highlands” would be a stretch. Its fame is somewhat meagre too, although a 1959 vernacular poem by John O’Grady has made it memorable for some. Its famous line is about a bloke who is “up at Tumba-bloody-rumba shootin' kanga-bloody-roos.”

[Pretty wooded hills near Tumbarumba]

[Low hills with vine-covered slopes]

 

The local roos would certainly have needed their winter coats, as overnight the temperature plunged to minus 4. I was glad Lynne had made sure our doona had been given a feather reinforcement a few weeks before the trip. The only other incumbents in the wee caravan park found their water had frozen overnight. 

[Ready for the ride: Tumbarumba to Rosewood]

 

The temperature didn’t encourage an early start, but the sun soon enticed us up the hill to the start of the cycle trail. We’ve been on plenty of cycle trails in Australia and New Zealand, but this would be the first time we’ve ridden one that is sealed the whole way, in this case in bitumen. There are reassuring hints that this was once a rail line, with old-style station names, the remains of old platforms, plenty of cuttings, and various bits of rail paraphernalia. Crucially, as with most rail trails, the incline is quite merciful. Trains are generally not able to climb a slope of more than 2 degrees. So while the vibe is retro, the surface and the infrastructure (think bridges, fences, crossings, toilets, sign posts, interpretive panels) are all shiny new. 

[The rail trail is paved and smooth all the way]

 

Lynne was still recovering from a cold, and we were both short on riding practice. More than that, we’d had a rushed and stressful trip across Victoria, after a sleepless night on the ferry. Sometimes you go for a walk or a ride not so much because you really want to, but more because you know you need the brain re-set that being out in the fresh air gives you. And so we rolled down the smooth track through hilly open woodland, before breaking out into wide, gently rolling hills dotted with eucalypts, sheep and cattle. It was quietly, gently exhilarating, the perfect way to ease us back into the present. Our coffee stop at a little wayside seat added some needed caffeine into the mix, and also some humour. While we had a thermos of hot coffee in our packs, we’d forgotten cups. All we had was a urine specimen container that we use to carry milk or condiments. So we took turns to sip micro-brews from our little yellow container, in between giggles.

[Lynne pours a "specimen" cup of coffee!]

 

[We found a ewe and lamb warming themselves on the track]

Our minds soon turned to the future. If we went all the way to Rosewood, we would then have to ride all the way back. The total trip would be close to 45km, rather more than we had planned. But I was quietly confident we could do it, especially given we were riding our e-bikes. We’d learned that Rosewood had a café, encouragingly called “Gone Barmy”. With the offer of another coffee there, this time from an actual cup, I convinced Lynne we could do the full return trip.

[We got there - and rested at Rosewood Station.]

 

And so we did, the return ride being just as delightful as the outward journey. Even the feared uphill to the Tumbarumba station proved a toothless tiger, and we were soon back with “Shorty” ready for a shower and rest before heading to the pub for a well-earned dinner. Our little life in Tumbarumba had been short but surprisingly sweet.

The Spirit of Bushwalking

“Covid-19 has been a blessing in disguise: Discuss.”

Perhaps it’s too soon for any examiner to dare set that question. But … might there be some truth in the statement? I’ll leave a fuller consideration of that to another time. Here I want to reflect on some of my own unexpected learnings (dare I call them blessings?) during two separate lots of Covid-19 lock-down.

[Pining for Scenes Like This]

 

It didn’t take long before sourdough baking, Zoom meetings, Netflix bingeing, and too much eating and drinking, began to pall. I found myself, to borrow from Monty Python, pinin’ for the fjords. More accurately, I was pining for the Tasmanian wilderness. I passionately wanted to be out walking there, but the rules of lockdown meant I couldn’t stray far from home. 

 

As I pondered why I felt so strongly about my inability to be wild walking, I came to a surprising conclusion. I realised that in large part it was my soul that was pining to be out there. And that’s because, for me, walking has a strongly spiritual dimension to it*. 

 

Bushwalking as spiritual? Surely it works the other way around, where the spiritual life is the focus, and words like walk, journey, path, or way are just figures of speech to help us understand it? Certainly moving feet have always seemed an ideal metaphor for the life of the spirit, as if soles and souls are deeply related. But what if this link between walking and spirit is more than just a metaphor? Might we legitimately speak of walking itself as spiritual?

[Sole to Soul: Really?]

 

I spent much of lockdown reflecting on, and trying to write about, this link. I’ve come to call it the sole to soul connection. Most of that writing isn’t ready to be shown, but perhaps a sampler of that work might give some idea of the territory I’m trying to cover. 

 

This particular excerpt centres on practices: what bushwalkers might do to grow their own soul while out there walking. It’s tentative, brief, and incomplete, and it won’t suit all walkers. Let me know what you think!

 

* (For now I will leave aside how we might define words like “soul” and “spiritual”.)

 

1) Beyond Bragging

 

We’re tramping in New Zealand’s Aspiring National Park. It’s raining, and our group stops at a hut for a snack and a drink. It’s mid morning, but the inside of the hut is still full. So we’re huddling under the shelter of the verandah when some of the incumbents come out, preparing to leave. We find out they’re also Australians, and we soon get chatting about where we’ve been and where we’re going, as you do when you meet other walkers. 

 

But the talk soon takes on an unusual edge. This group, from one of Australia’s big cities, is uber keen to tell us how many other walks they’ve done, loudly and repeatedly. When we get a word in, they gleefully jump on any walk they learn we haven’t completed. “Oh dear! You haven’t seen New Zealand until you’ve done …” 

 

Afterwards I tried to understand why this interaction dispirited me … and why I began introducing myself as a Tasmanian when in New Zealand! The truth is nobody actually enjoys hearing bragging, and I’ve since come to see things such as “been-there-done-that” tick lists, peak bagging, boasting about beating track times, talk of “conquering” mountains, being strongly competitive, and an over-fondness of your own fitness, as forms of bragging. 

 

[Bagging or Bragging?]

All of those things tend to stroke the ego, and I’ve always found that ego, a strong sense of my self-importance, gets in the way of my soul’s growth. In the context of bushwalking, bragging not only pushes people away, it also pushes place out of focus. Place becomes a mere backdrop to my ego; a stage on which I strut and preen. That means I’m missing out on what the place has to teach me. In a real sense I am harming myself. 

 

Most spiritual traditions caution against bragging. Going right back to the ancient Greeks, hubris was considered an insult to the gods. In Buddhist teaching there’s a specific warning against regarding yourself as superior on the basis of your body. Your body is impermanent and subject to change, therefore such boasting means you are not seeing reality. 

 

In the Christian tradition, there are plenty of pins to prick the braggart’s bubble. One example is Jesus’ parable about the pharisee who thanks God for his own piety and goodness in comparison with “sinners”. Jesus ends up inverting the situation with the line “all who exalt themselves will be humbled, but all who humble themselves will be exalted." (Luke 18:14) In Hindu codes of conduct, followers are simply instructed: “Do not boast. Shun pride and pretension.” (Niyama 1) 

 

Of course none of us is immune from ego. A healthy human needs a healthy sense of self. But there are practices that can take us beyond bragging, beyond the need to stroke our own ego. Some of the practices that follow may help us to look beyond ourselves.

 

2) Being Creaturely

 

I’m at a special place in the Tasmanian highlands: the land of a thousand lakes. It’s after dinner and slowly our group talk has diminished; quietened. Via yawns and stretches and quiet mutterings, we signal our readiness for sleep, and eventually we amble to our tents. The banter continues briefly, called from tent to tent. But soon we ease closer to sleep, and talk ceases altogether. 

 

On the nearby lake, a similar scenario begins playing out. I’m almost asleep when I hear half a dozen black swans softly honking and tooting to each other in the gloaming. I can no longer see them, but in sharing pre-sleep rituals with these creatures, I am realising afresh my creatureliness. Out here, breathing the same air; dependant on the same water; subject to the same weather, it seems obvious that we – swans and humans both – are small creatures in a vast creation.

[We're all small creatures in a vast creation]

 

Christian theologian Richard Bauckham, in Bible and Ecology, laments that humans “somewhere forgot their own creatureliness, their embeddedness within creation, their interdependence with other creatures”. We forgot what it means to be a creature. 

 

So how can we remind ourselves that we’re creatures? Being creaturely might include observing what’s happening in our own bodies at various stages of the day. How are we responding to exertion, rain, stress, rest? Are we noticing the highs and lows of blood sugar; of mood; of muscle fatigue? How are we dealing with rubs, blisters, scratches and bites. We might also try to engage senses that we tend to neglect in urban life. We could, for instance, expand our sense of touch to include the feel of wind in our hair; mist on our face; sun on our skin; lake water on our feet.

 

And since we are social creatures, there are always numerous creaturely things going on with other members of our walking group. Noticing those can enhance our appreciation of other walkers. And reflecting on all of this can be part of our practice of regaining our creatureliness.

 

3) Being Still

 

Bushwalking might have the action of walking in its name, but this shouldn’t imply that it’s all about non-stop action. While some walks can become rushed route-marches, I’ve never found these beneficial to my soul. However we can find an inner stillness while walking, particularly if we put in some practice, and take the opportunities that arise. 

 

A number of spiritual traditions have walking forms of meditation. Within Buddhism there’s kinhin, a practice that involves movement and periods of walking between long periods of sitting meditation (zazen). My Buddhist friends Tim and John regularly take part in a kind of longer-form walking meditation practice called a yatra. Yatra is Sanskrit for journey or procession, and in Hinduism this generally means a pilgrimage to holy places. However their experience of yatra is a variation involving a walking journey of some days. John writes “when we began walking we were instructed to keep our attention on our feet through the rhythm of the breath, then to extend it to our legs, the whole body, the vegetation and wildlife, the sky and birds, then back again.”

[A Moment of Stillness]

 

Christian walking meditation has some similarities. The principally inner mindfulness of sitting meditation, focussing on body and breath, and the presence of God, is expanded to include broader mindfulness of your body’s engagement in the walking process. It also involves mindful observation of the natural world or creation. Your surroundings in the form of light, wind, weather and your fellow creatures all point back to the Creator. These kinds of practices can form part of any bushwalk, especially when you’re apart from your companions.

 

On an extended bushwalk there’s also the time – even the necessity – for deliberate slowing down and physical stillness. E.H. Burgmann, a bushman turned Anglican bishop mid last century, reflected on his relationship with the bush in his autobiography, “The Education of an Australian”. He wrote that “the bush . . . will not speak to a man in a hurry. Its message is worth waiting for. Only the soul that is stilled in its presence can hear the music of its song."

 

4) Practicing Gratitude 

 

Ancient Latin poet Cicero believed that “gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all the others.” The same sentiments are found in most spiritual traditions. To Christian reformer Martin Luther, gratitude was “the basic Christian attitude”, since God is the giver of all good gifts. The Buddha declared gratitude to be one of the highest blessings. Western Buddhist master, Jack Kornfield, writes that being grateful for not only life's blessing but also its suffering is a key component of living a spiritual life. Similarly in the Christian tradition Mother Teresa believed “the best way to show my gratitude to God is to accept everything, even my problems, with joy.”

 

It’s one thing to hear or believe that gratitude is a virtue, but another to actually be grateful. While that’s especially true when you strike hard times on a bushwalk, it’s also easy to miss that which should elicit gratitude. That is one reason I am glad to walk in the company of others. Spirituality is not just an individual matter. Those I walk with often point out things I’ve missed, or remind me of things I’ve taken for granted.

The West Coast Wilderness Trail: Day 4

Kumara’s goldrush might have ended in the late 19^th century, but on our last night Kumara’s Theatre Royal Hotel was still channeling that vibe. The Wildfood Festival was in full swing, and the hotel’s bar and dining room were heaving. Lynne and I were invited to share a table with some other Aussie cyclists and, getting into the wildfood theme, we ordered the venison. (It was a good choice!)

[Once used for digging gold] 

As we set off in the morning we found more reminders of the goldrush days. Some old mining relics had been set on fence posts along the trail. A short while later we crossed a large suspension bridge over the aptly named Chasm. Beyond the chasm was the rushing blue of the Taramakau River, which we would have to cross on our way to the finish at Greymouth.

[View from Chasm to Taramakau River] 

And now we followed the Greymouth Kumara Tramway, benefitting again from the work of the old miners. Horse drawn trams once carried gold ore along this route to the port in Greymouth. It made for a pleasant gradient, initially through a beautiful patch of dark podocarp forest. To me one of the surprises of the West Coast Wilderness Trail had been the amount of native forest we’d encountered. In so many other parts of New Zealand it is cleared, gone forever.

[Riding a forested section of the Greymouth Kumara Tramway] 

Too soon we broke out of forest and rode into bright sunshine. The trail ran now through farmland – and parallel to the state highway – and we had to farewell the forest for good. We knew we’d soon need to cross both the highway and the river, so we were pleasantly surprised to find a new looping underpass, purpose-built to avoid a potentially dangerous road crossing. The trail then immediately swung onto the bridge across the wide, braided Taramakau.

[Sea wrack on the beach south of Greymouth] 

Our route was flattening out as it ran north along the wild coastline. Occasionally we glimpsed long stretches of shingle beach, storm wrack littering the high tide line. The intense rainfall in the mountains to the east can wash vast amounts of sediment down these rivers and into the Tasman Sea. And with it comes a huge volume of shattered timber from the forests, so much that rivers and beaches here are scoured for useable craft wood. Although we were reeling Greymouth in bit by bit, Lynne and I weren’t ready to finish. So we stretched both time and our legs on the beach, inspecting some of the storm wrack for ourselves. It was staggering to see the size of some tree trunks that had made the journey from hill to river to sea.

[Somehow this tree washed all the way down to this beach] 

It was a Saturday, and the west coast was busy about its weekend business. The salty air mixed with the tang of freshly mown grass as we rode through the increasingly built-up area. The trail itself was busier too, with a mix of day riders and full-trail cyclists. We recognised plenty of the latter, including a group from the North Island. We saw that a pedal had come off one of their bikes, rendering it almost impossible to ride. Ingeniously they’d rigged up a tow-rope, so the rider on the stricken bike could be towed by another bike the final few kilometres into Greymouth, all the while steering and braking as required.

Greymouth looked close now, the cranes and warehouses of the port in plain view. But looks can be deceptive. The trail markers pointed us up the seaward side of the port, only to take us to a dead-end at the southern breakwater. Puzzled, we followed the now-sparse signs nearly 180 degrees back, and then via a strangely convoluted route through the port to the landward side of town. If it had been a hard day’s ride, we might have been bothered by this seeming detour. But today, at the end of 4 great days of riding, it felt like a lap of honour.

As we finally rode up Mawhera Quay, alongside the Grey River, and into the town proper, a quick look around told us we’d finished. All that was left to do was to exchange congratulatory hugs, and find our way to Monteith’s Brewery for the traditional end-of-ride group lunch. And how would we get the 1.5km to the brewery? We’d ride, of course. What’s an extra 1500m between friends.

[The end! photo by Lynne Grant] 

Post Script. The coronavirus “clouds” that had been forming during our trip (early March, 2020), became much more like an imminent storm in the days that followed. We ended up cutting short our New Zealand trip, and flying home to Tasmania while we still could. We hadn’t been back long when we heard the sad and sobering news that New Zealand’s first Covid-19 related death had occurred in Greymouth. The world had changed!