Day 19: Country Lanes
Although I’d already had breakfast and gone to the sea to spy dolphins, the day was still quite early. Even so, I’d missed the first shuttlebus back to Christchurch, and the next one wasn’t for several hours. So, I considered my options: Go back to the ocean and try to swim with the dolphins again, perhaps having better luck this time? Hang around town? Take a long hike? A short hike? Waste all afternoon on the Internet?
I decided on a nice, country lane hike in the sunshine. It was a delightful amble up a paved road, with blooming flower gardens and fragrant hedges lining every front yard. Except for the paved road and small, sided houses, the gardens reminded me of a platonic ideal of eden, the white-petaled hedges alive with snowy butterflies and tiny buzzing bees.
More amazing was slightly up the road, where a stand of tall, juniper-like trees stood, their dark branches overhanging the pavement. The trees were simply teeming with tiny little grey-headed, yellow-breasted birds, merrily snacking on the trees’ little blue berries. The birds would eat the berries in one happy gulp, preceeded with a joyous peep. In between berry-eating, the birds would sing: it was almost a charicature of birdsong, with twitters, peeps, flutters, chirps and melodies ringing out from the trees. The chorus made it seem like there were many more birds than I could actually see, hiding up in the crown among the green. I stood, entranced, for a good while, just watching them flit about, chatter, and eat.
Now, there was a time when I was really into birding — not “birdwatching”, thank you very much! — and I took a lot of pleasure in spending a few hours of my day with my binoculars, and Audebon book, and a notebook, heading down to the seashore or a meadow trail to locate and identify birds new to me. (Truth be told, I once spent a glasses-less half hour on a trail in Maine trying to indentify what type of raptor– think eagle, hawk, other taloned bird of prey — a large rock was. Oops.)
As I continued up the trail, I heard a strange flapping “whoot-whoot-whoot” of a large bird, and that birding instinct kicked back in. I took my binoculars and hunted around for the elusive creature, who I found “hiding in plain sight”, as it were, on a branch among the trees.
It was a New Zealand pigeon, easily identifiable because I had seen several of them in captivity at the various “Kiwi Houses” and such that I had visited. With its relatively large size, colorful green head, and dove-like demeanor, he was pretty much unmistakeable. A gorgeous, colorful, placid-looking bird, it was so much more impressive in the wild. I spent quite some time just watching it chill out on its perch, high above on a thin branch in the middle of the roadside thicket. It seemed odd to me that a bird of such size and markings would live so close to houses and people.
There were some more amazing — and amazingly simple — treats on my stroll, a simple stroll pretty much anyone could do, a sunny, gradual incline of low impact if taken at a slow pace. But it felt as if I was viewing the spectacular — things that, if I actually lived on the street, I would mistake for ordinary.
For example, a tree. A huge tree, atually. I backed against it, and estimated: it was a tree 15 Dinas wide, almost as if 15 trees grew and molded together to form an enormous trunk. This was one. big. tree. I could barely get it into one frame of the camera!
And then there were the cows. Shy, funny-looking black cows with white faces (and one all-brown one), they reminded me of gigantic tuxedo cats. As I approached the fence that lined the road, all of the cows, in one movement, started, then heaved their enormous bodies up and out of the muck they were sitting in or from their restful positions, clambored halfway up a small hill, and turned around to stare at me. They looked gentle and a little bit confused as to why they were up there on the hill. I hung out and watched them for a while, too.
There were other simple pleasures of the hike along with the birdsong and flowers and cows. I especially enjoyed spying a large, manicured garden hidden behind a hedgerow and fence. It reminded me of the kind of garden my father would love, with small lemon and apple trees, wooden benches and stone paths lined with lavendar and ornamental grasses. A peaceful oasis in an already peaceful town.
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I took the 3:00 bus back to Christchurch, and this time, instead of a straight route, the bus driver stopped off at a few places to take picures of the scenic peninsula. He also made a quick stopover at a cheese factory, where I bought a particularly yummy New Zealand cheese called “Egmont”. I spent the ride listening to my Ipod and taking the wool yarn I had bought, unraveling the skein, and winding it into a ball — a rather time-consuming process when it comes down to it, but a decent way to spend a pleasant drive.
April 21st, 2007 at 7:27 pm
All in all, a peaceful, relaxing day!