Today was all about exploration for me, I decided it would be a good idea to walk up the volcanic cone that is in the back yard. I walk down the street a ways and find the sign that says Maungaroa Lookout Tk. No idea what the sign means but I can clearly see the top so it shouldnt be that difficult to get there. Bad idea to travel without my water canister...also bad idea to travel in jeans as they are quite warm and restrictive.
So up the trail i go, much steeper then I had expected. Also took note that paths were relatively clear as it seems to mean it is a popular path. Comparing this to the Adirondack Mountains is not even fair. Adirondacks receieve thousands and thousands more visitors as shown by their highly erroded pathways, almost like walking through a trench an excavator dug out. Here it was mostly just no vegetation in a zig zaggy line as well as some well placed boards that acted as steps.(The LA in me grumbles they do not meet safety codes but the kid in me says weee! big steps!) Also I note that the vegetation is a very very dense screen, as their are no big mammals such as deer to graze on all the saplings and such or provide deer trails. If one were to try and walk straight through you would benefit from a machette... or a chainsaw depending on how lazy you are.
So finally reaching the top, things start getting really steep, who would have guessed a volcanic cone would be so rocky and steep.. jeez who made these things anyways. The top is mostly bare with a few shrubs and small herbacious plants... kind of neat to think how long it took to make the soil that these plants are rooted in as the leaves do not drop like back home. Back home its thick layer of organic material from all the leaves falling ...in fall... here it is only loose leafs or "dust in the wind" (struggling not to finish rest of song.....) aghh.
The view from up here is quite amazing, great view to the beach as well as down to the Beachstay, although very nervously, I sneak over as far as i can to take a cool "aerial photo" of my home for 4 months. I also take note to some clematis vines at the top of one tree across the valley, they should be blooming fairly shortly, will have to come back up here and get pictures of that.
On my way back down the cone I hear "a rustlin' " in the trees. I quickly picture horrorifying scenes from Jurrasic Park/Predator/and oddly enough Space Jam all combineing to attack me.... also could be Yetis but I fear them not for I have my trusty Yeti-shank I made in Nam.... what?.......... So I hear something moving and get my camera ready I wont die from Yeti attack without getting footage. The most ENORMOUS PIGEON IN THE WORLD is flapping about in a nearby tree. So I quickly get my big camera out and zoom in out it and grab a few shots. The pigeon is facing away from me turns and looks at me over its... pigeon... shoulders....? Then it turns to face me... Its on! I get one last shot of it before the attack. It takes off thrusting hurricane force winds from underneath its 12 foot wings. Knocking over trees and other feeble avian cousins it swoops towards me looking to take me away to its nest to feed me piece by piece to its 7 foot tall newly hatched demon spawn pigeon babies. As it nearly rakes my face off like a John Deere wheat thresher it shoots back towards the sky as another larger Pigeon comes in obviously trying to claim me for its own. As the two 350.lb pigeons fight viscously in the sky cooing thunder deafening battle crys and destroying much of the fragile ecosystem with their rockets I slip away down the hill back to safety... unfortunatly my camera stopped working when they faught... must be some kind of Electro-magnetic pulse device they are equiped with. However I managed to get to safety and vowed to go back someday and rescuse the poor village children that were picked up and carried away the previous week.
A long day indeed, I patch my wounds and stitch myself up.... Tomorrow is the Disturbed Concert AND taco tuesday!
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