Ted's Hiking World Blue Pools
Mount Aspiring NP

March 6, 2107

Today, as part of a week-long get-into-shape quest in preparation for an assault on three of the Great Walks, Dave and I drive northward to the Blue Pools, a popular attraction just inside the Mount Aspiring National Park border.

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Roadside attraction

The Blue Pools are fairly close to the highway.  Our route will take us a bit farther, down beside the Young River.

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Our trail heads southward

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Getting started

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Suspension footbridges always are fun

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Another bridge is over there

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At the Blue Pools

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Nice

Leaving the tourists behind here, Dave and I and plunge into the forest.

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Mushrooms and toadstools are everywhere

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A spring in the rock

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First trail obstacle

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The Red Clover are everywhere, also

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Arachnid art

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Entering a long meadow colored by Curly Dock

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The Foxglove are as high as an elephant's eye

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Chilean Myrtle

We hear rushing water off to the right.  Shortly ahead, at another suspension bridge, we find a little use trail leading upstream, to my favorite spot of the day:

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Every creek around here has blue pools

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This is why I go hiking

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Limit one at a time on this one

It's not that the cables couldn't hold more people; it's the extra swaying around that can cause structural problems.

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Common Selfheal

In fact, many of the flower varieties I have seen here thus far look just like the ones back home.  That definitely was not the case in either Patagonia or Italy.

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A new style of stile!

That design makes much more sense than the old-fashioned set of stairs on each side of a fence, it being cheaper and easier to maintain.

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Young River

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Thorny Olive

Beside the trail is a trap set for a sloat, a non-native importation that predictably has morphed from some sort of hoped-for solution into the problem itself.

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There is no bait in the trap

A big overhanging boulder is sheltering, of all things, a discarded pair of worthless boots.  Ugh.

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We seem to have reached the end of our trail.  In order to continue, it would be necessary to ford the rushing river.

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End of the line

It is time to take a break and munch some gorp.  Settling down on a sandy soft spot, our reverie is immediately thwarted by a swarm of sand flies, the dreaded nuisance throughout New Zealand.  Although we have some repellent wipes at hand, in disgust we simply pack up and start back.

Sand-fly bites can be painful, and they leave welts that hang around longer than those from mosquito bites.  On the plus side, those vermin don't seem to be a problem as long as one keeps moving; so that's what we'll do.

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Nifty patterns

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Birdie won't take the bait

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Tansy Ragwort
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Bird's Foot Trefoil

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Ganodermataceae Fungi

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The Curly Dock are most colorful

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Young River again

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We haven't seen any of these guys    ⇔

Back at Blue Pools, some twenty-somethings are diving into the water, both for a photo-op and to see whether their bathing suits will stay on!

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Hers nearly did not

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Last look at Blue Pools


§: This was a nice walk that would have been nicer had we been able to stop for lunch.

Scenery *
Difficulty *
Flowers *
Solitude *

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