| Leader | Mentor | Understudy | Tail Ender | |
| Standards | Warren | Alan | Veronica | Shirley |
| Alternates | Norma | Nick | Liz | Pauline |
Stats: Distance 11.5/7.6km, Ascent 519m, Time 4hrs.
With passes in hand a team of resilient trampers boarded the bus for a further walk in the Korowai/Torlesse Tussocklands Park to end our second Covid-defined year.
The warm bus and length of the ride up to Porters Pass can be sufficient to lull a keen tramper into a stupor, however that state was quickly gone on exiting the bus and feeling the nip in the air. The Alternates and Standards set out on their way. The Standards beginning with a scramble over a washed-out gulley. And soon the leaders and those who’d walked the track before conferring about the best route. Making choices about pathways (there is no marked track) was the order of much of the day. To go straight up or to zig zag up (or down) the levels of the terrain? Not unlike navigating a course living with Covid in 2021.
It was the first day of summer and the walk was filled with flowering plants. Celmesia lyallii underfoot and delicate bright yellow spires of Bulbinella hookeri. Both pretty. The Bulbinella pretty enough for some trampers to entertain thoughts of it in their home gardens. Also, flowering was Disceria toumatou or matagouri and Aciphylla aurea commonly known as speargrass or Spaniard. While the golden Spaniard’s flower is handsome the plant is challenging to love given the havoc it can wreck on vulnerable bare flesh. Several of us fell into it, unbalanced by lumpy ground or were speared by it in passing. It appears to grow in clusters – or at least pairs – where there’s a plant on one side of the path/track there’s at least one on the other side so that avoiding contact is difficult.
Turns out that the Spaniard plant, like the flu pandemic of 1918, was ill-named. Sandra Simpson (Spiny Spaniards in New Zealand, 2013) writes that the only reference she can find suggests that the name is “jocular” and that Reverend William Colenso, writing in 1894, called the name “objectionable” preferring the Māori name, taramea (rough, spiny thing), or its botanical name. Its spiny-ness is an effective defence against browsing animals, and before the introduction of them, against moa. Māori ate its tender shoots and tap root which tastes something like a carrot. Which all adds up since it’s a member of the Umbelliferae or carrot family.
The Standards found their way and ate morning tea looking down the valley to see the bus parked at the bottom. The walking was sometimes spongey underfoot, sometimes tussocky and consistently mentally engaging. And then we were walking the fault line and talking hypotheticals and which way would you jump if?
We could see the Alternates ahead making their way up to the Coleridge Saddle and caught up with them as they lunched there in the sunshine. The Standards pushed on up to the top of Boundary Hill and lunched and marvelled at the spectacular landscape, Lake Coleridge and the Wilberforce and Rakaia valleys.
As we readied ourselves to go, the comfort of food in bellies was quickly unsettled by a post lunch warning from our leader – going too far to the right could result in a broken neck, and on the left could result in a broken ankle. Sure enough there was a sharp drop off on the right and the walking on the left was pocked with hoof prints. In addition, there were the omnipresent Supercarrots to avoid. Some of us didn’t. Part way down our descent was rewarded with the discovery of festive red ribbons marking a path. In the spirit of Christmas, a team had done a recce quite a while ago and left seasonal cheer. Thank you very much.
The remainder of the Standards’ walk was relatively flat and straightforward. We followed a 4WD track most of the way to the Red Lakes (which are blue) with shoreline shaded by mountain beech. Then made our way to Lyndon Road and the waiting Alternates. The homeward trip was delightfully uneventful after an exhilarating last walk in the Canterbury foothills for the year.
