Ohope, part 7

Karangahake Gorge offers so many tracks to hike, through lush, mountainous terrain, that we could have spent all day there. We'd had our holiday though. It was time to get home. Still, a quick look around this river gorge area wouldn't take much time. Here are the last of our holiday snapshots...

The bridge you see to the left is closed.

Reminds me so much of the old buildings we found out in the woods as kids in Castile location. 

 When we got up into the hills a ways, we came upon another bridge.

Take a closer look at this picture. Do you see any notices in front of that bridge?  Of any sort?

When we vacationed at Disney theme parks many years ago when Allie was a kid, the lines leading to the more exciting rides were all but walled-in with warnings. Not here. Here, they let us discover for ourselves how exciting it is to walk on a bridge that knows how to move in four directions, all at once.  

 Now, let me tell you, I have never had any problem with walking over swinging bridges. The height doesn't bother me, nor does a bit of motion. However, this bridge was something else. 

I want you to watch this movie clip before you go any further...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oG8BxbJ8wkQ

Did you notice how nice and sturdy that bridge from Indiana Jones was? 

The bridge we were on shook a lot more (in my opinion) as we walked over it than that movie bridge did. Granted, we didn't have a horde of bad guys hounding us from either end. (nor did we have any screeching thank Goodness) 

For a few moments as I was reaching the midpoint on it, I forgot that I was on a bridge... 

I thought I might be back aboard the boat heading out to White Island and pounding over ten-foot seas.
 I thought I might be tap-dancing for the first time in my life. 
I thought maybe giant girls were playing jump rope with the ends of the bridge, and doing double-dutch besides. 

That thing was tricky to walk on. 

And we all made it just fine. Okay, I may be exaggerating, just a little.

We didn't go very far up the trail.  It was beautiful though. The ruins are being reclaimed quickly. 

 We're on our way back down. Here is that bouncy bridge again. Hmmm, maybe if I do one step at a time, nice and slow and quiet, it won't wake up and notice me on its back again. I'm telling you, this hoss likes to buck!  

We read that not much gold had been found in the rivers. 

Down below, in the swimmin' hole, a few kids cooled off. 

And that was it. We had had an amazing time on our holiday. It was still relatively early in the afternoon. We would certainly make it back to Auckland before the rush-hour jams began. It was time now to relax and let the kilometres fly by. Allie got us home safely.

Proof that we are home. The first thing Jeanne did as we settled back into our home life again, was to head out to her garden plots. This is what happened during our four day holiday.            -djf