Day 64/72: Lake Marion and the Cascades

It was still raining. We drove to our campsite for the day early, checked in and put out table and chairs and various shoes out in the space to save it for ourselves. The man who checked us in gave us a map and various recommended walks around the area, so we drove to his first recommendation: The Cascades. The most amazing waterfall through a gorge, with a coffee van at the entrance to wake us up a bit. The view was incredible, and the walk took about 15 minutes on a hanging bridge across the gorge.

Our next stop was to see a couple of keas: the only parrot that lives at a high altitude I think. Quite incredible birds, but very intent on pulling apart camper vans or cars, or scratching people, and as they're quite big, we kept our distance.

We then did a walk through the rainforest to Lake Marion. The walk was incredible, climbing across roots and boulders uphill to a hanging valley with a huge lake, and mist and clouds all around, then stamping and half running back down. It took about 2 and a bit hours.

The evening was spent eating and trying to stay as far away from sand flies as possible: we both got very bitten.Read more