Rerekarua Bay

Had a bit of a scare coming out of Elaine Bay this morning (Mandy driving today)… the road out is a bit like going up the Queenstown end of the Crown Range road – a series of steep hairpin bends, only narrower and with very limited visibility. So it was quite “interesting” to meet a fully-laden truck and trailer unit on one of the steepest bends… We both slammed our anchors on, and came to a complete halt half-way round what was, for us, an incredibly steep left-handed curve. It looked at first like neither of us could go either forward or backward… then he moved a couple inches down, so I moved a couple inches up, and we finally managed to doh-si-doh our way round – WHEW! Thank goodness for the power of a Mercedes V6!!
It’s around 25km from Elaine Bay to French Pass, the most northerly part of the Marlborough Sounds you can reach by road, and about two-thirds of the road is unsealed. And a vast majority of those kilometres have no shingle on them and just have rough, bare rock connecting the potholes. The journey took us most of the morning, and at times we were traveling so slowly it would actually have been quicker to walk! But we were in no hurry, and the views as we traversed the highest points were spectacular.
We arrived at French Pass at about the same time as a pod of 10-12 dolphins, and the show they put on over the next hour or so was incredible! At times they were only a metre or two off the beach in front of us, and they leapt and frolicked as they rounded up schools of fish to then attack. We’ve never seen anything like it… remind us to show you our video footage some time.
There’s only a narrow channel of water between us and D’Urville Island. Known as ‘the Currents’, the water here is constantly churned up as the changing tides flow through the channel.
This afternoon Charlie clambered over the hill beside us to the next beach over, where he whiled away a very pleasant afternoon fishing. Once again he caught the same varieties as yesterday (minus the snapper) and was disappointed that he couldn’t keep the 2 blue cod he caught, having learned from the NIWA man yesterday that any caught in the Sounds cannot be legally kept before 20 December.
We are parked at the DOC camp right on the water’s edge tonight, and this time we are the only vehicle in the park, with just a gentle lapping of the waves to soothe us off to sleep.Leia mais