15/09/2016
I'm going to try and describe via some photos, some of the places the society has gone to and the terrane we sometimes find ourselves in, and people and places we meet and get to along the way. First of all some of the members - One of the key people on our adventures is Bob. Bob is a super mechanic and because of the places we find ourselves in sometimes, a bloody long way from anywhere, we need to be able to be self contained in terms of vehicle repair. In the 1st photo (pic 1) Bob is standing by the 'Bridge to somewhere', which in itself is a hard bridge to find, unlike its mate along the river a bit 'The bridge to nowhere! which is almost impossible these days to get to.
Everyone has to bring along the basic spares for the vehicle, water pipes, fan belts etc. The next person of importance would be Big Bad Ralph! His Nissan (pic 2) is our probably our main rescue truck. If anyone gets stuck, it's usually BB Ralph's fully equipped truck that will get them unstuck! However its always a team effort when it comes to unstucking member's vehicles. The society is made up of people who enjoy the outdoors and adventure.
In terms of our main bird, we all think the Sky Lark is the most popular, hard to see, but lovely to listen to. (pic 3) A bit of a fluke getting this shot!
With our camping (pics 4 & 5) we all bring along tents, some have a bed arrangement in their vehicles. We bring our cookers, and all the camping comforts we can squeeze into our vehicles. At the end of a long day appreciating , its nice to unwind with the stories of previous trips, and what happened on the day. As a rule we try and spend each 2nd day in a motel so the ladies can freshen up.
After breakfast each day, we always have 'morning talk'. This is an opportunity for members to bring up ideas for the day, its also the time to get any bitching cleared away, and a rough idea of the plans for that day. Sometimes we get up to plan M! But not often (pic 6). Also at morning talk, we award the 'dog! (Named Groober!) (pic 7) Someone has added extra eyebrows and a moustache to the dog, (I can't imagine why) but its awarded to the truck that, in the opinion of the 'committee' got into the most trouble the day before and/or it's team did the most stupid of things. Its a very popular award. This award used to be known at the 'Wally of the day award' so you get where this goes.
There are places that are suited to finding our main bird and (pic 8) describes that perfectly. You can see why we need 4WD capable vehicles. We can spend a lot of time climbing up the side of hills, that can sometimes turn into mountains. (pics 9 10 11) and when we reach the top, it like arriving at the top of the world (pic 10) but its nice to be down, because some of those hilly tracks are steep. What's also nice is to reach a DoC hut (pic 12), and these are another oasis, a chance for morning tea, lunch, or afternoon tea out of the wind and / rain, and even out of the sun! Its interesting the change in climate in January, it can be very cold or very hot. We always do these holiday adventures in January each year. We did the first adventure in January 2001. So if you come with us, you need to think about a range of clothing. The coldest we've been in was - 2 degrees. Take look at (pic) 13, we walked around here for a bit of an explore. Note the snow and this is January! In (pic 14) My lovely wife Linda is about to help 'Uncle' one of the single men that come with us as he arrives on the other side of the river on the flying chair arrangement that we came across on an appreciation mission.
In Pic 15 is a road sign that sums things upon really. I guess there must have been a road here once, but the river has washed it away over the years. Interesting thing is the variety of birds that sit on this post! You can see a bit of the road (pic 16) if you get a bit higher up.
The tussock land goes for miles and its nice to find a secluded spot for lunch (pic 17 & 18) Everyone always looks forward to the next stop and its nice to chat with everyone over a nice cuppa. Of course there are places that are a tad better than other to have a cuppa (pic 19). St Bathens is an interesting mining town if you're ever in central Otago. Roger and Dot from Richmond drove our Mahindra on this particular trip and it was interesting to see one of the local farmers had a Mahindra with with the deck full of dogs up in the highlands. (pic 20)
Our adventures are not only in the highlands, we're often in the bush as well. It harder to appreciate here but we do. (pic 21) We have two men called Ralph and this is Cherokee Ralph's Jeep Cherokee. Like the Mahindra Ralph's cherokee sports a kiwi snorkel made from some PVC pipe, but hey it works! In (pic 22) we have Maurice and Jean's Prado, and they really enjoy themselves on our adventures. It's quite amazing how well their Prado performs. In (Pic 23) I'm always surprised to find an old tunnel along th away that are dug out in the middle of nowhere. reading up on the history a lot of these were dug out in the 1800's early 1900s to give access to the gold or other resources. So we've gone through have been made by the river that runs through them. In (pics 24 and 25) you can see the roads we travel in bush areas. Bob directing the Mahindra over a narrow pice of road.
Finally our Kurow members the Slee's (pic 26) have a laugh with Linda and our famous guest Brendan Dugan.
So there you go, a little insight of that the Birdsong Appreciation Society gets up to every January. We will be leaving Auckland on January th 8th 2017 for our 16th annual Appreciation adventure.
If you'd like to become a member, just message me and I'll see how we're looking. Just so you know, there are some fees that go with all this.
All the best Bill and Linda
PS: I encourage our members for become friends with our page and post some more pics of our adventures together.
