Tararua Forest Park

Even though it was raining we were not about to waste a day sitting around getting on each others nerves. We decided to dress appropriately and go trekking in the Tararua Forest Park. The park provides an outstanding variety of tramping, hunting and walking opportunities in a wild, natural landscape only 1.5 hours from Wellington.

Open river terraces and regenerating bush surrounding the forks reflect the farming and sawmilling history. We decided a short trek to the Seed and O'Brien's Sawmill was the order of the day, 40 minutes return, not bad. Great views, beautiful river flowing below steep cliffs, dense rain forest vegetation, very impressive.

Our 40 minute return hike turn into a 3 hour return hike, we kept looking for the sawmill, which we had passed and taken pictures of 20 minutes into our trek. Duh.

At one point Francois (who has no sense of smell at all) noticed a sweet yet disgusting odour in the air (and it did not come from either of us). I recognized the smell as being that which emanates from something that has died. Why am I telling this story..not sure. What had died was in fact a brush tailed possum, this pesky pest, looks like a giant rat and is causing serious harm to native species of plants and birds. He may look cute but yuck. This rodent wont be missed!

So we had a wonderful day...many more to come...