Jan 22, 2024
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Ghost Mountain Ninja at Resonance Festival (Karamea Friday 13th Feb)
Sun-set over Oparara Estuary (West Coast, N.Z)
Fenian Creek - Oparara Valley by Pete Prue on Flickr.
Karamea Baby!
Finally we made it to Karamea where we had two nights booked at the happy hippie house of Rongo Backpackers! http://www.rongobackpackers.com/
In the Māori language, Rongo means peace. And it definitely was a peaceful place with fun and happy staff. I would have loved to wwoof there, maybe another time. Anyway we settled in, Mike arrived and then we made some chicken curry for dinner. Yum!
Lukas and I slept in the car that night (not what I'd call a good night sleep) while Johanna, Maggie and Mike were inside on the bunks. In the morning we had a leisurely breakfast, took advantage of the free internet, and then got ready for our day of exploring the area of the Oparara River and the southern end of the Heaphy Track, one of New Zealand's nine Great Walks.
So the five of us hopped in Huckleberry and drove 9km north of Karamea and then another 12km on a gravel road to get to the Oparara Basin. First we walked, actually I ran, along a short track to the Oparara Arch.
Next we took another track past the Mirror Tarn.
You can see how well the water reflects the forest above it. http://www.travelpod.com/travel-photo/paul_lucy/newzeland-2007/1195281360/1-mirror-tarn.jpg/tpod.html
And then we went to the Moria Gate Arch, a 'Lord of the Rings' inspired name.
Most of the time on this track Johanna, Maggie and I were playing a silly but very entertaining word game where you start with a word and the next person says the first word that comes to mind and so on. The game ended when someone said the original but that never seemed to happen. We started one round with "Pocahontas".
There was access to the other side of the arch through a cave.
It was another amazing sight!
And there was another cave around the corner.
Hmm interesting...
Let's climb it!
After that we walked back to the car park, got back in Huckleberry, drove back down the long gravel road, and then another 12km farther up the coast to where the Heaphy Track starts, or more specifically Kohaihai River.
The Heaphy Track is 82km long, runs through Kahurangi National Park connecting the Aorere Valley in Golden Bay with Karamea and can be completed in about 5 to 6 days. We only spent a couple hours on it, a couple hours that we won't forget for sure! It would have been nice to do the whole trip but I'll save that until next time I visit New Zealand. So we headed over the suspension bridge crossing the river towards Scott's Beach.
After 45 minutes or so we could see our destination down the other side of the hill that we just hiked up.
It wasn't much longer until we arrived at the picnic area just up from the beach for a snack. We ate Ginger Nut biscuits, my favourite!!!
I will definitely have to find a recipe for those back home if I can't find them in a grocery store. There was a Weka hanging around us. It was quite friendly, too friendly! It stole a biscuit right out of my hand! I guess that teaches me not to feed it pieces of biscuit.
We headed to the beach after that. It was amazing!
The boys started to be boys and play in the dangerous waves crashing to shore.
We all seemed to do our own thing, I went over and climbed up a rock.
The boys were still playing and the sandflies were horrible so I went to find johanna in the creek. I hoped the sandflies wouldn't like it there but they still did.
We both had had enough of the sandflies so Johanna went back to the beach to round up the boys. I went down a couple minutes later to see her with the look of shock on her face. Lukas and Mike had got sucked under the water by a wave and couldn't get up at first. They had almost drowned! But thank God they didn't.
I haven't had a near death experience in my life before so I can't try to explain the feeling. All I know is that they were in shock, we had to be there for them and that God had given them the chance to live.
We headed back along the track to the car and then drove back for another night at Rongo. Lukas and I had a good sleep in the dorm that night while Johanna and Maggie slept in Huckleberry. In the morning we would be heading back south to Westport and then towards Hanmer Springs.