Tawanui

Up early and eager to get away from our sketchy campsite aka the side of a dark road, we headed out before light so we could get to the base of Mount Cargill for our hike. We arrived just before dawn and set out at sunrise. This was a nice 3 hour hike uphill. A well-groomed trail and varying vegetation. When we got to the top we learned you could just drive up, but where is the fun in that. After a few photos we ran into a New Zealander that informed us she had just bushwhacked, that’s right she used the term bushwhacked, a new tramp along the spine of the mountain and encouraged us to try it on the descent. Up for the challenge, we set out following her direction which took us down a short cut with a lot of scrambling down rocks. It was a lot of fun and had even better views than the top.

Back at the car, we did a quick stop at Baldwin St., the steepest residential road in the world. We walked up and down it as there is no way the van would have made it. You really felt it in the calves. A quick stop at the grocery store for provisions and we headed on our way to Tawanui DOC campsite.

On the way to the campsite we stopped at Tunnel Beach which was cool private beach. What was unique is that a tunnel was built to access the beach by John Cargill for his family in the 1870s.
We also made a quick detour to “The Nugget” which I had low expectations of but turned out to be quite the impressive site. The nugget is a point of land that sticks out of New Zealand. There is a lighthouse located at the tip and it is picture perfect. The views were epic. High cliffs and steep drop offs with a narrow approach and roaring oceans below. There were a few rocky outcrops just off shore waiting to destroy ships. We caught it at dusk and stayed for a while to stare off into the ocean. What a backdrop, I hope the photos do it justice.Read more