February 22 The Dell (Day 148)
Another beautiful day! Off we went to the Mt. Somers Track to do some walking in the beech forest. We drove up the short gravel road to the trailhead and headed to the Nature Trail. We thought there would be reading panels with information about the nature around us. Nope, it was a trail that just led you into nature along a creek!
We ended up at the mangled ore cart up the embankment from the stream and took that track back to the carpark. We attempted more of the Mt. Somers Track but it was too steep for us today!
We then drove the few miles to the trail we were going to do yesterday, the Lake Emily Track along the Stour River. A nice flat river valley track! We intended to do a timed walk, but then saw we were just a quarter mile from ‘the Dell’. The track was out in the open until we got the the Dell where a stream flowed out of the hills to join the Stour River. We walked up and into the forest to a beautiful small boulder strewn canyon with a cold stream flowing over the moss and fern covered boulders while birds chirped and sang around us from the boughs of the beech trees!
The water was so refreshing when we splashed it over our heads!
We headed back to the Airbnb for our last dinner there and to pack up for another move tomorrow. After packing what we could we went out into the garden and explored the ‘secret garden’ behind the small house. The garden is filled with whimsical statues, gnomes, beautiful flowers, sitting areas and vegetable patches. Our host even shared with us the green beans he picked this morning!
The small houses with tubes are bee houses for the solitary native NZ bees.