Day 7: (Friday 6th March 2009) This day was our exit day, so we headed out to Holdsworth Lodge, missing the planned stays at Totara Flats and Cone Huts because of our two day delay at the start. This was a very gentle walk out along a very well maintained track. Clearly for visitors as the solid bridge over a 20cm trickle was a "1 person" bridge and anything bigger was built to highway standards.

The weather was gloomy but not quite rain, at least that is my excuse for gloomy pictures!

The NZ Wood pigeon or Kereru (Hemiphaga novaeseelandiae novaeseelandiae) has apparently become an endangered sub-species while the NZ cicada has many species & subspecies, this being ?Kikihia cauta.

The NZ tramper 2 is also hanging up his pack (what is left of it), claiming frailty and advancing years, and we are (seriously) sad to see him retire. Tramper 3 needs some orthopaedic help!!

As for the camera battery problems - the first generic ENEL3 was still working a week after the tramp. I then noticed it was 1800mAh compared to 1400mAh for the Nikon EN-EL3. Who says generics are no good?

Addendum: It also turns out that the Lot number of the EN-EL3 battery that came with my D50 camera was recalled in 2005 because of a tendency to short circuit, overheat and melt!! No wonder it couldn't keep a charge!!