There's A Little Yellow Eyed Penguin ...

On Monday we drove from Alexandra to Kaka Point in the Catlins. Here we stay with Lyn, Selwyn and Otto Cardno.

Our normal walk here is from Kaka Point to the lighthouse at Nugget Point, walking mainly on the beach - a round trip of 20 kms. We frequently see seals or sealions, as we did both yesterday and today.

An unexpected bonus today was seeing a yellow-eyed penguin less than a kilometre before we got back to base. The only snag is that they are not normally seen on this bit of beach, where people with dogs are allowed access. And it is unusual for a penguin to be on the beach in the middle of the day, when they are normally out at sea gorging themselves.

Lyn rang DOC - the Department of Conservation, who sent a lady out to scoop the penguin into a small cage and remove it to a safer place before a dog created havoc with it. But by this time the penguin had gone, hopefully into the safety of the sea.

The End Of A Very Hot Week In Alexandra

... in more ways than one. For the first time this week, the temperature here was under 30 degrees. In fact I don't think it went above 25. The afternoon was cooler than the morning. That's what happens in New Zealand, especially South Island, when the Antarctic scowls in this direction.

Also it is the end of our week here. Tomorrow we move away to the coast where it should be much cooler. I have walked over 180 kms here in 7 days - actually in 6 days because on Monday we were mainly on the road here. I have to admit that it was very hard work and the thought of doing that every day for 10 weeks is daunting but surely I will not be doing it in such a heatwave?

A Couple Of Corrections

A few days ago in "New Zealand Giants" I went on about how difficult it must have been for Bob Fitzimmons to travel back and forth between New Zealand and the United States, where most of his boxing matches took place.

By coincidence, today's morning paper "The Otago Daily Times" carries one of those "100 years ago today" reprints of an article from 1910, about Fitzimmons, who "was once a New Zealander", being lauded while paying a visit back to the country where he achieved manhood (he was born in Cornwall, England) and started boxing.

Further research reveals that he clearly went to live in USA when he became a professional boxer.

Also a few days ago, I mentioned that I had discovered from the instructions for my new pedometer, how the old pedometer, or any pedometer, should be clipped onto the waistband or belt, above a knee, to function properly. One little point I didn't mention - it needs to be the right way up. If you accidentally turn the waistband so the device is upside down, it won't register any miles or kms at all, however far you walk! Guess who ...?

Treed Us A Possum

The forecast for today is 35 degrees. So far this week, the temperatures - 32, 34, have exceeded the forecast, so we await today's actuality with trepidation.

Fortunately, today's long walk is already done. For an NZ change, I did it on my own as Gay has blisters on her feet. This means she unfortunately missed something I saw for the first time ever - a live possum.

Possums are not natural to New Zealand, but the estimates of their numbers vary from 70 million to 100 million. They are a pst and New Zealanders hate them. They eat 20,000 tons of berries, fruit and foliage each night. They return night after night to the same trees and eat all the foliage, destroying the tree.

It is rare to drive for any distance without seeing dead possums on the road but, as nocturnal animals, it is unusual to see one. Today, as I walked the river path from Alexandra to Clyde, I caught up with two women who had stopped because their dogs had found something in the bushes. The "something" turned out to be two possums and I saw one of them climbing a tree to get away from the dogs, then sitting in a fork of the tree in broad daylight. I didn't have a camera with me, but the picture above is probably of a relative.

The Walking Man

Is this an omen? Is this the year of the Walking Man? Today's big news in the art world is that the new record price for a work of art at auction is the $104.3 Million paid for the Giacometti sculpture "l'homme qui marche" - "The Walking Man".

There are people in the Puivert area who know me by that soubriquet - not to mention thousands of followers of this blog.

Interesting to see that there is also a Rodin sculpture of the same name, not to mention a James Taylor album.

Let's hope that the success of the Giacometti walking man carries over into Vic's Big Walk and its associated fund-raising for Pancreatic Cancer research.

How High's The Temperature, Momma?

Phew! The temperature has whacked up to 34 degrees (93 degrees F to Americans). That was yesterday, and it could be more today.

What a time to pick for suddenly leaping into walking 30 kms per day. We have done that for 3 consecutive days now and I am fair jiggered. And I am fully aware that starting from May 15th I shall have to walk that distance every day for 70 days.

I am hoping that two facts will make a big difference. One is that by then I shall not, as now, be coming off virtually a month of tiddler walks, travelling, and other, weather-induced idleness. The other is that it is very unlikely, in May, that the temperature will be at these levels.

We have known temperatures of 36 degrees at home in May (on at least one occasion following a day of 11 degrees) but it is unlikely to be so consistently hot by then. It is possible, of course, but at least it will not come straight out of the winter, as now.

The photo is not of a pumpkin, a melon, an apple or an eyeball. It is a small relative of the famous Moeraki Boulders, pictures of which I displayed on the blog this time last year.

Vital Advice For Pedometer Users.

Yesterday we moved inland to Alexandra, frequently the hottest place in New Zealand during the summer. True to form, the weather has biled (as Huckleberry Finn would have said) up to 31 degrees Centigrade just as we ramped up the walking to 30 kms per day.

I owe an apology to my maligned pedometer. As memtioned before, it has been giving me a lot of inaccurate readings so I purchased a new one (pictured), the Accusplit Eagle.

The Accusplit is much smaller and neater, has a very large display - necessary because of the dire and deteriorating condition of my eyes. It claims a battery life of 18 months, compared with the experienced life of 6 months in the other one. It has an excellent attachment system, with a clip-on and also a backup lanyard to another clip. I have learned how necessary that is because I have dislodged and dropped the other one many times.

I was very disappointed at first by the tiny scrap of paper which is all the instructions you get. However, as long as you have a magnifying glass, everything you neet to know is there. Especially this vital piece of information - that the only place to clip the device is on your belt or waistband, directly above one knee. IN NO OTHER POSITION WILL IT WORK ACCURATELY. If Omron had told me that (in fact I am pretty sure they suggest dangling it from a lanyard around your neck, their device would still be my one and only. I have been using it clipped to the chest-strap of my backpack, in which position it seems to lose some kilometres, especially, for some reason, when walking up steep hills.

Following that advice from Accusplit and clipping the Omron directly above my left knee while the Accusplit plugs away above my right knee, I get identical readings, which, unlike the Omron in its former position, match up with my known walking speed. Nevertheless, the Omron, being bigger and clumsier, is now relegated to Deputy Dawg.