Canoeing at the Bach

My sister’s bach (Kiwi lingo for holiday home) is situated near Lake Brunner on the west coast of New Zealand’s South Island. A few hours drive over Arthur’s Pass from Christchurch, this is the perfect place to relax. The view over the lake is spectacular while the adjacent land,owned by the Department of Conservation, offers fantastic views of bush covered mountains.

A typical kiwi bach (pronounced batch) or crib. (Photograph by Jason Goldstein)

A majestic stream flows slowly on the edge of the property and drains into the lake. We all jumped into Rachel’s big canoe and pushed deeper into the bush and out onto the lake.

A Weka (Gallirallus australis), one of New Zealand’s cheeky endemic flightless birds, was using our upturned canoe for shelter. We picked the insects and bugs from within the canoe and all jumped in. The bush here is dense and literally falls into the stream. Silver Beech (Nothofagus menziesii) trees unique to New Zealand lined the banks and near the lake entrance an entire forest sprouted from the watery depths.

The cuzzies and twins in one canoe on Lake Brunner (Photograph by Jason Goldstein)

Once out on the lake the wind whipped up and it was a bit dodgy turning a large canoe with six people in it broadside, but we managed to paddle around a small Island and watched the Tui (Prosthemadera novaeseelandiae) birds feed on tree seeds above our heads. We silently snuck up on a Black Shag (Phalacrocorax carbo), which took to flight when it saw us. It was a great family canoe adventure in the New Zealand bush. We might have caught some bush fever and not sure who started grabbing the tree moss first but we had a ton of fun becoming moss creatures!