A Good Turn

Today we went through the routine that we have settled into on this tour. On the road by 10:00 and headed north along the coast up to the Heaphy River – the start/end of the Heaphy Track.
The sea was wild with large strong waves and lots of white. We parked the car and walk over to the sand bar between the river mouth and the wild sea – it view was spectacular.

We decided to do the Nikau Loop walk which was a short distance from the car park, but across the river via a very old swing bridge. The walk took about 20 minutes and was beautiful.
Back to the car and a group of 4 or 5 women came out of the bush and began to celebrate and talked “we did it” – so we assume they had just finished the Heaphy.
We started back down the road to our next explore – the Oparara Basin – which has huge rock arches and a cave – enroute he past a van heading to the Heaphy River with the name plastered on the exterior “Scrambled Legs” – we assumed that was the girl’s recovery van.

When we reached the turnoff to the Oparara Basin there was a campervan on the corner and as we slowed to pass it two people waved us down. We stopped and they asked us if we were going to the Basin, they wondered if they could catch a ride – the track in was not suitable for campervans, so the signage said – they would not be covered for insurance. We thought about it and decided to help them out. We have to move all the stuff on our back seat and ram it into the boot. They were a young couple from Melbourne they were on holiday doing the South Island.

And yes the track was rough, metal, full of corrugations, narrow, lots of sharp bends and up hill. It would have been a 30-minute drive in and we got to know them – we heard about where and what they had done, where and what we’d done.
Parked up we decided take the walk to the Oparara Arch – these are massive cave like structures that have an opening at both ends – the arch is the upper part of the front opening. The photos we got did not do it justice.
The bush was super, and the stream had the red stain from the forest leaves etc.
We waited while the passengers did the other arch and we returned back down the road and dropped them off.

We had planned to have lunch at the Arches but it had gone well past lunch, so looked for a place to stopped for lunch and in the end headed back to our cabin where we had our lunch with coffee – the weather had become a little damp and the car will need another wash!

Tonight we enjoyed Blue Cod for dinner – very tasty and a beer.
Tomorrow we head off to Nelson and TahunanuiRead more