Biking along the Hāwea back road yesterday there was:
- a lilliput library behind a tree
- a ford with a pool of water still in it (soon to go as summer takes a firmer grip) but some thoughtfully placed rocks to the side for cyclists’ and walkers’ dry feet
- rowans/hawthorns planted along fence lines
- the occasional cherry plum beside them, presumably a pit once spat from a long gone drover’s mouth and now grown with too much fruit for the birds to handle (I imagine a baking hot day behind a mob of sheep with only a couple of plums to keep the drover going)
- an imperious quail on a fence post
- by one paddock an enveloping scent of lucerne, less sweet than clover but similar and telling of growing days under warm sun and deep roots seeking
- no traffic but a Can-am that slowed so as not to cloud me in glacial fines (thanks, non-ironically!)
- mānuka, pines, dust, matagouri, skylarks, mountains, sun.
- The lake receding and the heat increasing
- a tailwind downhill to Hāwea Flat
- No corrugations and a fine gravel surface that fizzes under your tyres like, well, champagne in the now cliched terminology
Not seen this time but previously:
- a white hindquarters flash of a wild deer over a fence and into the mānuka up the hill, never not looking in case it happens again
