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Robert, Tomoe & Me in the Pupu springs, near Takaka.
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Tomoe & Robert in Clifton Grove. Clifton was a beautiful little place, with
lot's of rock formations, and it's just near Takaka.
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The porch at the Shambhala backpackers.
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Robert demonstrating the main activity in the Shambhala.
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The Christmas parade at Takaka. |
| Beginning the Heaphy track. This was the time I was
still pretty excited by the bush in those tracks. After a short time you get used
to it - and then it gets boring (and then you go climbing on mountains instead
of doing flat tracks).
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| Some summit you climb to in the first day of the Heaphy.
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The Gouland-Downs, second day of the track.
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| A famous (?) pole, where trampers tie old boots.
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| Rest of the weary. We had great weather on the track.
Four hot, sunny days (quite lucky on the heaphy. That's what the DOC says, anyway)
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| Well. The Heaphy is a great walk, and has these
wooden walkways to walk over the muddy parts.
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| One of the huts. I think it was James Mackay hut,
but I'm not totally sure of that...
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| Going down to the coast.
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| Just before the Heaphy Hut, the last one of the track,
at the mouth of the Heaphy River.
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| The Heaphy hut from the inside. These are the nice
school-kids that walked the track. All in all there were around 30 kids (I think
they were 15,16 years old) - but they were really good kids!
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| The west coast. The fourth (and last) day of the track is
the most beautiful day, walking along the coast.
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| See that small Possum over there? It's quite rare to
see them in day light.
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| Some more west coast type of scenery.
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The heaphy, beside a huge amount of sandflies, had also several big (and not
so big...) swinging bridges. I don't have any good photos of the small ones,
but here you can see me crossing one of the big bridges.
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The same bridge (I think so) from the side.
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| Phew! At last we reached the end of the track.
It was quite hard for me (first time I carried a really heavy bag). You can see
Rudy, a great guy from Holland that walked most of the track with me.
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| Because there are no roads on the Kahurangi National
park (and that's good, really) - returning from the end of the Heaphy (a cute
town called Karamea) to Takaka is quite a problem. Taking a bus takes two days,
so I decided to take a flight. It was a tiny plane, just me & the pilot, who was busy talking
to his cell phone (!) - but it was cool. He flew over the Heaphy track - I could see all the track from above, great!
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| Back at the Shambhala. Here you can see Roee resting.
Roee claim to fame is that he's an avid Hapoel Tel-Aviv supporter. Go reds!
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| Limor, on the way to Wharariki beach. I kept meeting
her on my trip, the girl named Limor (oh, please)
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| Wharariki beach, a beautiful beach near the Farewell
spit (North of Takaka). And here's Limor again.
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| Same beach...
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| Well, it WAS a nice beach, with cool rock formations,
and some seals.
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| Saying goodbye to the Shambhala. Roee & Limor
traveled with me for a few days. The crazy japanese girl on the back is Sheema.
She actually liked my playing (they have a piano at the Shambhala. But John,
you need to tune it!). Anyway, I think that's the first picture of my poor
little car, GodZilla (I didn't name her, don't blame me). May she rest in peace!
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