We reach Totaranui

What a beautiful morning! We set off from Pohara and wound our way round the coast past the stunning Ligar, Tata and Wainui Bays (the other end of the Abel Tasman Coastal Walk) until the tar seal runs out. Around 12km of narrow, winding, unsealed road later we arrived at Totaranui – another hidden gem we had only heard about but never visited until now. I’ll leave it to the photos we will post over the next few days to describe this place.
We had a walk along the beach and back, then sat out under a shady tree for an hour or so while Charlie put his fishing gear together (not a sandfly in sight, Karen!) Being low tide, he decided to go off to explore the rocks at the Southern end of the beach, and came back with a bucket full of rock oysters! On Rick’s advice we had brought a chisel and a small hammer with us, and had bought a shucking knife while we were in Christchurch hoping for just this eventuality, so now was the time to try it out. We took a while to get the hang of it, and minced quite a few oysters in the process, but finally got enough for half a dozen patties – and ate a few of the big ones ‘au naturel’… absolutely delicious!
Then it was book time (for Mandy) and fishing time (for Charlie). Just bait stealers again sadly: apparently the tide was not yet high enough, and he needed to go back out again after we’d enjoyed our oysters with a bottle of Hunters Miru Miru (bubbly) for dinner!Leggi altro