Feral

0500 Monday morning a week ago Bro and I set off, heading north, in our late father's Nissan Patrol (gift to himself when he retired from farming 32 years ago - currently 350,000 km on the clock and Bro is going for a million. I calculate that at this rate he will have to drive it for another 64 years....)

Big lazy Diesel that will tow anything - just not fast. Good thing as we were dragging a tandem trailer loaded with a one and half tonne digger, and a chisel plough.  The plough had been sold and Bro was being paid to deliver it to a valley just out of Blenheim.  That paid for our trip north. 

Plough unloaded we continued up to the Sounds, to Kaiuma Bay. The last bit of that trip is 16 km of gravel road and corrugations. We juddered our way up hills and arrived coated in a thick layer of dust.

Having been hassled about the gorse regrowth on my land, I expected the worst, and arrived to find 6 foot high bracken, lots of brambles (a kind of blackberry with little or no fruit) and nothing to write home about of gorse.

So little in fact, the digger (which we were going to use to scoop it out) proved to be the wrong tool. Bro cleared the roadside none-the-less and a neighbour gave us the number of a local contractor with a machine that mulches up skinny weeds.

With not a lot else we could do, we hacked a 'room' deep in the bracken (from whence we could only be seen by satellites), built a big pile of cut bracken, rolled out our swags and after a 'camp dinner' cooked on the little gas stove had the most comfortable night's sleep I've had in ages.

Although there was dead calm and a crystal clear sky, we weren't hassled by sandflies (NZ's version of midges).

Another start in the dark on Tuesday and we drove to Picton to catch an early ferry to Wellington. We wanted to visit Dad's older brother and his wife, and Bro needed to pick up a 2nd hand outboard motor he had bought. It was great to see Uncle and Aunt.  The outboard, however, was a bit of a challenge - weighed 70kg and only fitted in the back with about half an inch to spare (and that after a lot of shuffling and struggling).

After a very long day and two ferry crossings in the calmest conditions I have ever seen on Cook Strait, we arrived back in the bracken about 1am on Wednesday. 

And slept well but were definitely driven out of our sleeping bags by sandflies on Wednesday morning.

Bull, the contractor, turned up after breakfast and a deal was done for him to mulch the biomass.  We loaded the digger and headed off to Havelock for a second coffee before the long slog back to Ashburton.

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Dave Northsider asked about weasels in NZ. On our drive back into the bush (in the dark) after disembarking the ferry, we counted 1 weasel, 2 rabbits, and 11 or 12 possums (Bro said 11 but he was driving. I saw 12.) I've seen weasels before but not often, maybe 2 in the 12 years I worked in the forest service. To see one on the road in an area where they are focusing on predator eradication really surprised both of us.

Weasels, stoats, ferrets, possums, rats, and feral cats are a menace to NZ's native birds, many of which are ground nesters and make easy pickings for wily 4 footed thieves. Most of those predators will also readily take to the trees to steal eggs and hatchlings.

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Feral humans however... well there is a whole other field of debate on the damage we humans inflict.  I promise to plant lots of trees, lots of plants that feed our native nectar feeders and leave you with a borrowed photo of a Poor Knights Lily

..which I am assured I will be able to grow there and which Tuis absolutely love to feed on.

Tui on herekeke flowers

3 Tuis landed on a nearby tree and held a parliament while we were packing up. I can't wait to get started clearing all this blackberry and growing more homes and food for them.