The Freewalkers Guide to the Milford Track - Day Two: Beware the Kea, Part 5
Friday, December 15, 2006 at 1:59PM The suspension bridge that looked completely useless was lashed to various points by an excess of steel cables. Underneath the engineering marvel, the rocks were a shade of thirsty grey. I vigorously headed across its metal slats; and just past the bridge, began to follow the trail took on its first leap upward. I looped around switchbacks, and over rock steps, with one eye on the ground, and another on the increasingly low clouds.
Two steps shy of mile marker fourteen I made an easy decision to turn around. I had already walked eleven miles, and I would have to walk another mile and a half to return to the hut. It was also clear that the pass was completely socked in, and probably cold and miserable. More importantly, I was famished. I dropped from rock to rock and made it back to Mintaro at a quick pace. Back at the hut, I found the majority of our group huddled about the coal/wood stove, futilely trying to coax heat from its grudging iron sides.
The other half of our group was eating, which seemed like a great idea to me. I rounded up my wife, and we began to cook our freeze dried dinner. As I crunched through the chunky, uncooked bits a half-hour later, I was impressed with how fatigue, desperation, and more fatigue could make a freeze-dried meal taste like five-star fare. As I was forlornly licking the last bits from my spoon, a piercing cry echoed from the porch of the hut.
“Keeeeeeeeeeea!”
Everyone, whether mid-bite, mid-step, or mid-word, stopped and looked. Before anyone’s eyes had a moment to focus, it came again contentedly.
“Keeea!”
From my seat I could see the source of the commotion. It was a large green parrot hopping about on the porch with the confident air of a landlord surveying his property. He would hop. Then, he would prune a stray feather. Then, he would hop again. Then prune. Then hop. Then he would groom his head with his talons. And then, after swiveling his head calmly, he would his cry of satisfaction.
“Keeeea!”
Eventually, the grooming, wandering, and pruning stopped in front of the main door. He sat on the front mat of the hut, directly under the sticker that admonished us not to let him and his kind in, and stared at us through the glass. He knew we were there. He had not been surprised or startled by the excited voices, dropped utensils, and camera flashes that had accompanied his arrival. He sat on the mat, and stared at us. He stared at us with as sad an expression a bird could give. He couldn’t talk human, but his face spoke for him.
It clearly said: “Come on. Let me in. I’m a good bird. I’m not one of those bad birds that the sticker talks about. In fact, I’m not even a Kea, even though my cry sounds exactly like ‘Kea’. So, come on. Give a bird a chance. I’m freezing out here, even though I’m a wild animal that deals with this kind of weather all the time.”
At least that was what his expression said to me. Eventually, he got annoyed at staring at the closed door. He took a deep breath, and puffed up all of his feathers so that he looked like a big green artichoke. In a heartbeat, he let it out in his loudest and most piercing cry of all. Then he waited a second, head cocked to make sure we had received his ultimatum. No one budged. Disappointed, he flew off. His appearance led to an endless amount of animal discussion among the group. But after all the flighty stories had been told and re-told, I quickly found myself in bed, wrapped in my bag like a mummy a half hour before sundown. And before I could even start to think about everything that had happened throughout the day, I was asleep.
Reader Comments (2)
KEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEA!