Opoutere

Hello Bloglodytes,

How have you been?

I’m sitting at a table in the barn-like twelve-bed dorm at Opoutere YHA, drinking a cup of tea and attempting to distract myself from a sinus infection. Note to self: be sure to drain all seawater from snout upon exiting ocean. Also might be a good idea to dump drinking water that’s been sitting in a hot car for days. A butterscotch taste probably isn’t wholesome…

I hadn’t been sleeping well in my tent (am I getting too old for such larks?), so I moved into the dorm, and I’m glad I did. This wonderful room was originally a bunkhouse for a goldmine that predates the circa-1909 schoolhouse. It has a twenty-five foot ceiling, big old plate glass windows and joy of joys- it’s all mine. The busy season seems to have passed. You’ll see it the photos of the YHA grounds. No people.



The only negative was a faint musty smell; a few sticks of Nag Champa (courtesy of Gregory, thanks!) fixed that.

So I’m happy to say I’ve been sleeping like a log. Days have been spent cooking and snacking, exploring the walks around Opoutere and looking for surf (I found a bit. I won’t bore you with the details- I’ll bore Keith privately, by email). Evenings I’ve been reading, eating and playing/fighting with Garageband, the Mac music-writing program. I’ll be here until Monday, and then begin to make my way down to the south island.

I’ll be sad to leave. The estuary, forests and beach at Opoutere are my favorite places in New Zealand, and this YHA is my favorite place to stay.

I’ve taken a few photos that only begin to suggest how lovely it is. Like most photos, what they can’t communicate is how the vistas connect together; what you experiences as you turn around, look up and down. Also missing are the sounds. A whole jungle of exotic birds call and sing to one another, particularly in the morning. Behind and beyond them is a gentle wash of wind in the trees, mixed with the sound of the surf. It all has a bewitching effect on the people staying here- they’re mellow and respectful. You see lots of reading.


To start off, here’s the kitchen. Note the gas stove. It’s the only budget hostel I’ve been to that offers one. This can be seen as a gage of the maturity of the guests here- I’m not sure I’d trust some of Solscape’s cooks, boiled and stewed themselves, not to blow the place up.

(Please remember I had to clean the Solscape kitchen every morning, hence the attitude. It was like the-morning-after-the-party…every morning for 45 days. And I wasn’t even at the party)!


The men’s bathroom. It’s lavender- you know I like it. Really nice showers, too, with extra bathmats… I dunno. Just really nice touches here and there. Purple flowers are poking their way in through frosted glass. When you’re traveling you notice these things, and really appreciate them.


Here’s the little living room. No TV, no radio. Nice book and map collection, a good reading light. And look at the view:



Above, a section of the outside grounds. These are little double and triple bed cabins.

Let’s walk to the beach. We head down the driveway, past the mailbox, and turn left on Opoutere road. Looking back, this is what we see:


A lot of these outdoor photos are really nice if you click on them, which blows them up to fill the screen. Do try it.

Opoutere road runs right up along the edge of the estuary (which is a protected nature reserve, as is the forest and the beach). These magnificent trees are called Pohutakawas. I think they’re just magical, surreal, like two or three different trees grafted together, something out of Dr. Seuss.

The patterns their meandering branches create against a horizon are like those we see when craning our heads and looking straight up into a “normal” forest canopy- do you see what I mean? In the high summer they produce dazzling red flowers. I’m utterly taken by these massive trees, and took a lot of photos.



See how they hang over the water. Further out are mangroves, which are slowly but surely filling the estuary.


Sprays of flax-like fronds sprout at the cruxes of the bows of the trees.
The dock for kayaks (which are available for free at the YHA is near this spot.


Just a bit further down the road is this pastoral view. There’s an adorable Shetland pony in the yard of one of the small farms on the inland side that runs up to you when you beckon, and enjoys being pet and scratched. Sorry I didn’t get a photo. Also, in one of these little farms lives a fellow who, completely out of character with the image I’m trying to portray, occasionally lets blast some of the most disturbing karaoke singing you’ll ever hear. The YHA receptionist tells me that he’s perfoming “death metal”.

Just past the place pictured last, we turn right, and head down a short road to the grass parking lot for the beach. We then reach the wood bridge that crosses the estuary.


Crossing the bridge you really start to go under a spell…you hear your slow footsteps on wood over the water. Sunlight shimmers and fractures in the mangroves.


At the end of the bridge, the forest begins. Here I try to show (in vain) the totality of what surrounds us. Looking into the forest-


And back toward the path to the bridge, and the steep, half-domed hill looming up directly behind the YHA. There’s a fun footpath to the summit.


And here, again, I must remind you of the qualities of sound I mentioned earlier. As you step into the forest, the sound changes. The deep layer of fallen pine needles has an anechoic quality; sounds at ground level hush. Yet at the same time, from above, the wash of wind and creak of swaying branches flares up, like cool flames. If it had been a month earlier, high summer, a huge oscillating buzz of cicadas would dominate. But now it’s fall. Birdsong blends with the remaining cicadas. And as we drift along, the sound of the surf starts to grow.


And grow. The path slowly changes from pine needles to blue white sand.

And you reach the beach. The cool dark of the woods give way to brilliant white light.


If it was hard before to portray a sweeping sense of space, it’s impossible now. Looking south we see this:

The spit of sand at the mouth of the estuary- a sanctuary for the endangered Dotterel. The rock formation in the foreshore is Opoutere’s icon. Sheep (natch!) graze on the hillside. The distance to the hill is perhaps a kilometer.

Turning and looking north, our eyes are drawn to a group of islands. The largest (or nearest) island has visible stands of timber-forest and what were (or still are, I can’t tell) cultivated fields. Imagine living out there. .


Beyond this island are more islands. The closer we look-


The more fantastic and dramatic they appear. What an exhilarating landscape! Look at that conical island.


Back to the beach, looking north. Once, I decided to walk to a big tree-covered rock formation at the far end (a small island, really). The distance is deceiving. The far hillside never seemed to get any closer. My guess is it’s about four kilometers. Here, using my camera’s zoom, and later creating a close-up on my computer, I noticed two figures walking that I hadn’t been able to see at the time. I think this close-up photo begins to give an idea of the sense of massive scale in this place.



The first time I saw this place, it took my breath away. Finally, I sat down on the sand. Above the water line it was fine white powder. At the waterline it was tan, and lined with shells. I looked more closely...


How beautiful! You could fall further and further inward into detail, just as you wanted to soar further and further outward, to the magic islands, to the farthest hills.

How do you keep a hold of this sense of perspective? How do you hold it, and not let it go?