Day 348: Fjordlands & Tuatapere

We woke up this morning with a partially flooded tent and rain falling at a steady pace. Our air mattresses had kept us off the ground and allowed us to sleep through all the rain, but it was time to deal with it. We scrambled to get everything packed into the car while slapping away at sand flies. The top priority for today would be trying to dry out our gear.

We used the first half of the day to drive deeper into the Fjordland National Park. We had the heat on full blast for several consecutive hours to dry out the tent, sleeping pads, and all the other stuff that got wet; Kieran drove shirtless without shoes on at some point. We got to enjoy some great views of the Fjords all the way up to Grebe Valley; they closed the road and we could not pass.

Next, we headed South for the coast. We've been using the Campermate app to help us find camping accommodation across NZ. It's been really helpful, but we've noticed an issue. It likes to claim that camp sites have clean drinking water when they really don't. Such was the problem with last night's spot and would continue to be a problem today. We were running low on water and had taken a few detours with no luck. Finally, we made it to Tuatapere, which had a grocery store. We noticed that the small town had a Christmas parade later so we planned to return for it.

We continued down the road to our camp site on Monkey Island Beach. We set up our tent and then went for a quick stroll on the beach. Even though it's summer down here, the high temperature was ~60F today and with no sun, we definitely weren't going in the ocean. After the beach, we made a few sandwiches and drove back to Tuatapere for the Christmas parade.

It was an awesome small town Christmas parade with food trucks, tractors, old cars, and then a military vehicle. There were mullets EVERYWHERE. We don’t know what’s in the water but these kids from age 7 and up rocked mullets at all lengths and curliness. These same kids would wear short shorts and rubber boots.

We decide to leave after Santa left and ended up following him until a certain turn and he waived the whole time. It felt great to be in a local community and celebrate Christmas with others.

Campground: Monkey Beach

Spots:
Fjordlands National Park
Monkey Beach
Tautapere
Gemstone BeachRead more