Keeping it all clean and tidy!

So today I climbed up to Lewis pass. Not much of a climb really at 863m, but quite frustrating as it was one of those rollercoasters: up 2km down one up three etc. Still the weather was cool, but those pesky sandflies are on you as soon as you stop. In fact they can even get you whilst poodling up hill on the 'granny' gear. The granny gear for non cyclists, is the smallest chainring, with the lowest gear a bike has to offer. I've no idea why it's not referred to as the 'slightly overweight, out of condition, middle age man' gear, which would be much more pertinent in my case, but it's not!

Anyway, camp tonight was very pleasant. A nice little clearing tucked away in some native woodland close to the pass. Also very pleasant was the diminished amount of pesky sandflies up here. I shared my instant mash and tuna with a small yellow breasted bird. Quite amazingly it seemed to be almost omnipresent! Every time I turned around, there it was tidying up my camp site: sifting through the leaf litter I'd disturbed, picking up bits and pieces and checking my groundsheet for stray and untidy items! I thought that maybe there was a bush full of highly domesticated yellow breasted birds, but it was definitely working alone as in the morning, another keen camp cleaner showed up and there was a bit of a squabble over who would clear up the breakfast crumbs! Maybe the yellow breast has evolved as a kind of pseudo apron, the bigger and brighter the yellow 'apron' the more campsites the proud owner gets to clean!