Before we made our way to Picton to stay the
night in order to catch the early ferry over to Wellington to start the second
part of our journey, we made our way about an hour further north to the top of
the Golden Bay and Wharariki (spoken Farariki) Beach. We were told the Beach is
the most beautiful in the region and if lucky one can see seal babies playing
at it (We didn't see any).
Since Isi has not received a satisfactory
amount of beach time, we set off to go there... and sit in the sand and...
wait, I guess... I have to say that I am not a fan of sitting at the beach. All
the things I like doing, I cannot do there, so I tend to be condemned to wait
until everyone else is finished with... not sure what really... having fun
lying around doing nothing... just lying there...
Anyhow, this time to a certain extent it was
fun. When we arrived at the car park from which it still is approximately 1 km
to get to the beach, we were greeted by two peacocks of all things. They seemed
to be loitering there (malicious lingering anyone?) and are used to getting fed
by people... Why peacocks though? They are not indigenous to NZ (unless I have
missed something). Strange...
To our surprise, the sky was covered in clouds
with some light showers (despite the forecast's assurance that it would be
sunny), but we had faith and went ahead to the beach anyways. Our way led us
through grassy hills, the grass were cropped all the way to the ground it can
only be done by herds of sheep (one of the things I learnt in bonnie Scotland)
and no surprise, they were everywhere... so were the sandflies ;)
However, after we bested them, we finally
arrived at the beach and it certainly is a very pretty beach. There are rock
formations called the archways, where the sea flows through onto the beach. It
is hard to explain unless you've seen it. Luckily, during our time there, the
sky also cleared up eventually to give a bright blue sky. I quickly started
rubbing the sun lotion on... Why am I telling you this? Because Isi's statement
was: "I don't need it, I am already tanned." The same Isabel, my
darling wife, that mocked me for getting a sunburn on my nose the second full
day we were in NZ. But I'll get to that later ;)
We spent the next couple of hours reading (The
Bourne Identity; fantastic book and nothing like the film strangely), walking
into the water or using the gorilla pod to make funky and strange pictures. My
sequence of forward judo rolls towards the camera is such a fail, it has to be
shared :D
We tried to put it off for as long as possible,
but at some point we needed to go towards Picton. Nothing much happened. It was
a very uneventful 4 hour ride over winding roads and mountain passes that was
just not nice. We hired a cabin on a camping ground for a very cheap price in
Picton and were very surprised to find a basic, but clean cabin with tidy and
clean facilities. To give you an idea, the horrible place in Fox Glacier cost
double what we are paying for the one here per night.
As we'll be off tomorrow, we'll hit the sack
early, but not before I put what feels like an entire bottle of après sun
lotion on Isabel... I will not specify a body part as pretty much every
uncovered part except the arms is "frazzled". I on the other hand
only missed out on the backs of my foot which are lightly red ;) Justice has
been served :)
This sea gull played the old "If I look away, you can't see what I am doing"-game with us for the best part of 2 hours trying to steal Isi's shoes
This is one of the peacocks at the car park. It was essentially already walking into our car looking for food
Wharariki Beach
Trying to lunge my gravity-ridden ass into the air
Stomping to see if you guys can feel it on the other side ;)
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