Day 28 Rest Day at Arthur's Pass

I proper rest day today. I didn't do any walking at all except across the road to the cafe for breakfast and an evening drink and to toilet the dogs. A grand total of 7339 steps.

Up early to let the dogs go toilet then back to bed till 9am. Bacon & eggs for breakfast. I spent most of the morning catching up on emails then took the dogs down to the Waimakariri River. There was a cold wind and I wasn't feeling like clambering around the river bed in jandals so Rapid just lay and stared for 10 minutes before deciding to get up and have an explore.

The keas are crafty and bold. I keep a bag of snacks (peanuts today) inside the collecting bucket. I left the bucket on the table and went in to get a coffee, which was already made as I had ordered it before getting the dogs out. When I cam back out a kea had the lid off the bucket and was in the process of lifting out the peanuts. Fortunately when I shouted at it, it dropped the bag rather than taking off with them.

Ella finished up scared of keas. Ella hates me shouting. Every time the kea came close to my coffee I would shout at it and Ella would run away. After a while she ran away as soon as the kea came close - she didn't wait for me to shout.

I spent an hour in the pub with Vicky and Louise again. They head for Hokitika tomorrow so I doubt I shall see them again.

There has been much talk in the media about the problem of campers in vans without toilets just going toilet anywhere. Everywhere that there is room for a van to pull off the road there is toilet paper. It really is disgusting and ruining our country.

There really are kiwi in Arthur's Pass village. I could hear one calling last night when I went out to check on the dogs.

On the road from Tapawera to Westport and through to Punakaiki I saw lots of live weka and very few dead ones. Since Hokitika I have seen only 3 or 4 live weka and found about a dozen dead on the road. I think the traffic is moving much faster on this road and the weka don't have time to get out of the way.