Day 43

The rain came through the night and Jack realized he left his boots on the roof… Oh well! I woke up pretty early with no reason to and spent few hours without sleeping. Sleeping in in the morning, we still left in time at 9am to see the cave at low tide at lunch time. We went a different way and without Esther we had a look at Curio Bay/Tumu Toka. Very nice and impressive rock formation surrounding 180 million year old fallen fossilized trees. We could see all the stumps and logs stuck into the beach and the cliff. We then did a short walk in the Curio Bay walkway and kept driving back to find the “niagra falls.” As expected they weren’t impressive and huge but Jack could wash his pants in the river flow. Arriving at 12pm as planned in the Cathedral Cave car park, we were surprised not to see Esther. No reception as usual around, we decided to have a quick lunch and head to the beach where the cave was. Lots of people down there, we made our way quickly. The beach was very nice and flat, leading to this massive cave hidden in the coastline. We took lots of pictures and the cave was very bright even inside.

Esther rocked up as we made our way back. I walked again to the cave with her while Jack decided to type some more days of our trip on his computer. Next we all went together to Mclean falls, ignoring the first falls we saw near the road which had some disappointed comments/reviews on camper mate. We shortly walked to the first smaller waterfall, then to the second lookout and could admire the 22 meter falls. It was a bit harder to climb the last part accessing to the main waterfall plunge pool and few people just stopped and watched us rock climbing (no problem for two little dogs). Jack and Esther went to dip their feet in the water while I took some shots. Jack made his way barefoot in the forest to reach the top of the fall and made noises to call us. Before leaving we stopped by a very expensive café to get chips and ice cream (beer for Esther). Back to the cars, we saw the pretty Lake Wilkie (which was still for once!), went on the Tautuku Estuary boardwalk, and finished our day with the muddy Lenz Reserve (only 1h track as we weren’t guests for the long one). Finally we drove to the DOC campsite to spend the night, stopping by to admire the waves at Florence Hill lookout. We paid our camping fees together and finally parked in a quieter place. We were happy to use the little kitchen for dinner with other campers, and went to bed early for the first time in a while.

Entree Written By Marianne