Te Karetu Point

After a rushed early morning of eating breakfast and final preparations, we were picked up at 8:00 by our kayak operator. We were taken to Marahau, where our kayaking trip would begin. Together with a German family of 5, we got a quite detailed introduction on how to use the kayak, where to put out bags, what to do if we happened to turn around the kayak or in any other emergency situation. The briefing was really good but also took about one hour. He asked if we had any kayaking experience, we answered: "yes, on small Dutch canals". We were good to go. Anyone could do sea kayaking, apparently.

By the time we were actually in the water it was 10:30. This gave us 5 hours to kayak all the way from Marahau to Anchorage which was supposed to take us 4 hours and didn't leave a lot of slack for breaks. But we were still positive we could make it, given that the ocean water looked calm enough in the bay, and we were told we'd have the wind in our back.

That however turned out to be utterly wrong. We were told to stay near the shoreline for the calmest weather, but even there we soon started getting strong headwinds and high waves. It was also going towards high tide, and the tides are particularly strong in this area, or so we heard. In the bays the water was OKish to kayak around and have a look at cliffs and see and hear the bird life. But every time we kayaked around corners of cliffs the wind got very powerful and the waves were several meters high. It really felt like a rollercoaster and that the waves could slam us over if we didn't hit them at a near-perfect 90 degree angle. At one point we felt in desperate need of a break and saw the German family on a narrow beach, so we figured we'd stop there as well. With no sea kayak experience we didn't really look at the waves near the beach too much, and when trying to navigate onto the only free spot left at the tiny beach we managed to get turned sideways by the waves. Thankfully some of the family saw this happening before it probably actually happened, ran towards us and dragged our kayak straight and onto the beach.

We ate some bread but the weather was cloudy and cold, and the beach was only getting smaller towards high tide. Another couple arrived and when landing had the same problem we had: their kayak was pushed sideways. This time Machiel could be the hero as he dragged their kayak onto the beach. But the waves were looking increasingly unfriendly and we were wondering how we were going back out there. We had realized by now that reaching Anchorage was out of the question. It was past 13:00 at this point and the part to come was mostly on open sea and nicknamed the 'Mad Mile'. Thankfully the kayak operator had clearly explained that we could also leave the kayak at Observation Bay, not far from where we were.

However, to get there we needed to actually get back into the water without turning the kayak upside down or filling it entirely with water. This was a fun challenge but we eventually made it (albeit it with Machiel sitting in a puddle) and paddled our way to observation beach. When we called the kayak operator to let them know we would leave the kayaks here, we also heard from them that the weather had gotten worse than expected this morning. Then it was time for a bit more lunch before we started our 1.5 hour hike to Anchorage. The trail was easy and especially enjoyable since we had our big bags transferred by water taxi.

In Anchorage we found a very nice spot for our tent opposite of a dried up river/ocean bed. There was a really good kitchen area for cooking, and clean toilets too. There were many birds walking around the campground. They were nice to watch and not shy but we found out soon that they would do everything they could to get peoples stuff. Plastic bags seemed to be one of their favourites and so we soon found our trash bag and it's content spread out over 20 meters. That taught us the lesson and from then on we were more careful.

To finish off the day we went for a walk along the beach and found some cool huge boulders that we could walk through. While the kayak ride was wild, we still had a good time but it was even better to enjoy the nice landscape when not being shaken by the waves. Yellow beaches, jungle that reaches up to the beach and blue turquoise water - hard to get better than that.Read more