(written on January 30th and February 5th from notes taken previously)
Got up and had a stroke of good luck! A young man from Germany named Raphael (who was parked next to me last night before moving and who was the young man who alerted me to my headlights being on when he looked at them) came over to ask for help pushing his car out of the mud.
Prior to his moving his vehicle, we were all parked on the grass next to an ocean inlet, and I guess he started getting nervous as the Water started rising when the tide came in, so he moved his car, but ended up moving it right into a water-saturated part of the parking area. 😬
So he came by and asked for help getting pushed out of the mud, which gave me the perfect opportunity to ask him for the return favor of having him jump in my vehicle once we got him pushed out. 🙃
With both of us free, we ended up chatting for a little bit and decided to head on a little adventure together down over to the Three Sisters–three large standalone cliff formations, one after the other, going out to sea.
The challenge was that it was high tide, which meant that normal access was blocked by all the water, so we decided to drive over the bridge around to the other side to the Lookout Point and then to climb down the Beach and then swim across the river to the exposed sandbar that would get us over to the three sisters.
Today was old-school Stephen adventuring. 🙃
So we drove over then parked and then first enjoyed the view from the lookout before heading over to what we had supposed would be the best way down.
There were cliffs on two sides but what looked like a way down through the jungle all the way to the bottom.
We started at a very large tree at the top and then slowly made our way down. At first, it was relatively easy, but then we came to some pretty good drops that required some technical maneuvering. Holding onto branches and small tree trunks and what not to navigate down steep slopes and small vertical drops.
Eventually, I made it to the bottom. I had been scouting ahead to see if it was even possible for us to get down safely, so Raphael was following me down bit by bit.
Once at the bottom, I realized that between us and the river was a bog. 😅
It wasn’t super huge, but nor could I see the bottom, and was definitely not one I was keen on trying to cross. I think I might have taking a step into it and been like, “uuuuh… nope!” 😅
So I start looking around for an alternate way around the bog, and what did I find? A long skinny tunnel cave, maybe 20 meters long? Yes, full of water, but it was quite shallow water, and though the cave ceiling was very low, it was at least tall enough to not have to go on my hands and knees.
I didn’t know if I defined a way out on the other side, but I went ahead and went through the cave, and upon coming out the other side, found that we were home free. 🥳
Couldn’t have scripted it any better myself. 🙃
We stashed our stuff above the high water line, and I put my phone in the waterproof pouch that I bought when I got my phone fixed from dropping it in the ocean.
Then began the journey across.
My experience with rivers that go into the ocean is that pretty much every time I’ve seen them of this kind where there are banks of sand on each side, what I find is a very deep channel, and it was no exception this time.
With walked into the river and started going down very quickly. It was clear that it was going to be quite deep, well over our heads, so not yet wanting to do a full-on swim across the river, we decided to go down closer toward where the river met the ocean where the waves were breaking, figuring that the water might be a fair bit shallower over there.
And it was… for a little while. 😅
That crossing point was probably 150 to 200 m?
Where is the other crossing point was probably more like 40?
I’m just making up numbers, but hopefully they’re somewhat accurate.
We started waiting across, and the water depth got deeper and deeper to the point where eventually we had to just swim. So there I was trying to swim across a huge gap with the strong current pulling me toward the ocean and the waves coming in at the same time.
And trying to do all that with one hand because, though I had my phone in a waterproof case, I didn’t know if it was going to be 100% waterproof, so I was treating it as a safety net and not an adventure tool, so to speak.
So I sort of did a one-handed decide stroke, struggling with all my might to make it across.
So hard with one hand, holding the other out of the water. 😅
Raphael caught up to me and passed me and made it to shore well before I did, I still fighting against the current in the waves.
Eventually, I managed to finally get to where I could stand, a welcome relief!
Once on the other side, after catching my breath a little bit of exploring, checking out some Sea caves to see how deep they went, and then going around the point to see if we could get some decent views of Elephant Rock and the Three Sisters, which we did. 🙏
We did some adventuring and exploring, looking at the different rock formations and what not. There was a spot where in order to get a really good view of the three sisters, you had to scramble up the side of the rock with the waves coming in, timing the wave so you didn’t get hammered by a wave into the rock. That’s where Raphael stayed behind, and I went on scrambling up the side and then over and then up the rock face a little bit in order to get the best pictures that I could of The Three Sisters.
Beautiful little spot, And because we had taken a… non-traditional method of getting there, we were the only ones there when it quite possibly could have been dozens had we gone when the tide went back out.
On the way back, I just barely remembered this little tub we’d found. I think it was maybe the bottom third of one of those blue food grade barrels that restaurants get sometimes (though this one was white).
I also found a large board that had washed up on the beach that was perfect as an oar, so I thought it might be fun to try to cross the river sitting in the little tub paddling with the board. 🙃
Raphael got some pictures of my attempt, which, was all it was, an attempt. 😆
My body mass was just too much. There was maybe an inch of clearance between the water and the top of the tub, so the slightest rock sunk me. I tried two or three times before giving up.
I think Raphael tried a couple of times as well, he being a bit smaller than I, but it was the same thing for him. And on his last attempt, the tub chose to escape back to its watery home, perhaps to wash up at some future time for perhaps a child to attempt the same adventure. 🙃
On the swim back, the current was so strong that I gave up trying to keep my phone above the water. If I didn’t use my other arm to swim, I would have been swept all the way back to where we had tried to cross before, so I gave up, hopes that my little waterproof case would indeed to keep my phone dry, and just went ahead and swam, both hands pouring the water next to me in order to get me across.
Gratefully, though there was some water in the case, there wasn’t enough to actually do harm. 🙏
Once on the other side, after Raphael assured himself that his stuff was still where he left it, he went east up the beach, and I went west down the beach, and we both looked for the best way back up the hillside to our vehicles (as the way we came down was not very appetizing to do in reverse 🙃).
After doing a little bit of exploration, I found that there was actually a dedicated DOC trail, complete with ropes, leading from the top where we had come down, to a possum trap down below.
Once Raphael came back from his exploration East, having run into obstacles in his attempts, we went ahead and scrambled up the hillside using the available ropes that had been set, wandered back to the viewpoint, and then back to our vehicles.
From there, we decided to continue traveling together, next destination Mount Damper Falls.
It was a little bit of a walk through fields and grass and the gate before getting to some downward steps to the main viewpoint of the beautiful waterfall.
And it was, indeed, quite beautiful. I love those kinds of waterfalls where the formation around the falls is sort of a half cylinder.
In a bit of a repeat from the experience on the coast, we did a little bit of downhill exploring to see if we could get to the bottom of the falls. It was sheer drop off at the main viewpoint, but we thought that perhaps there might be a way around if we went further down.
So down we went. 🙃
The forest was thick enough that they’re wasn’t much vegetation growing on the forest floor, so scrambling down the hill wasn’t too big of a deal. Off to our right as we scramble down, the forest disappeared, and it opened up to another little canyon with a waterfall in the distance.
Figuring it would probably be better to go that direction than to continue going down the way we had, since we could clearly see where we were going, we headed that direction.
Raphael hadn’t brought his shoes, however, so he was trying to get by with basically flip flops.
And for young man much less experienced in Stephen-style adventuring, it was a little nerve-racking for him at times, but I worked hard to make sure he was in good position to be safe, and we scrambled over and then down the hillside.
At the bottom of the hillside, we met up with the creek, and in a funny coincidence, we began to experience something that I had told him in story I had experienced many years ago as a teenager where a super narrow mini canyon ended up in a sheer drop off.
As a teenager, there hadn’t been a way to get back up, so we ended up having to do one of the most dangerous mountaineering escapes that I’ve ever done in my entire life. Probably the most dangerous.
This time, there was a way out. But still, before heading back, we followed the narrow creek down through its super skinny mini slot canyon, almost to the waterfall’s drop off point.
Raphael hung back because there wasn’t really room for two, and his footwear made it unreasonable to really go where I had gone.
I stopped short of getting super close to the drop off itself, because it was super duper slippery, and I didn’t really feel like taking a slide over the edge of the waterfall to the rocks below. 😅
As I scrambled back up a little mini slot, I offered my water shoes to Raphael, but he’d gone as far as he was comfortable, so we made our way back up, mostly retracing our steps.
Once near to the viewing platform, we ran into an older lady who was also doing a little bit of exploration, chatted with her for a bit, and then made the walk back to our vehicles.
Next stop was Waitara River Falls. 🙃
That provided an interesting experience. As we walked along the path, we came to a place where we had to cross some cow pasture, which is relatively common in New Zealand–designated trails going through private property, generally cow or sheep grazing land.
What was interesting this time, however, was that every single one of the cows, and there were not just a few, were bulls.
I don’t remember exactly why I decided to do it, I think maybe a couple of the bowls were getting into it a little bit?
Anyway, I decided to imitate the sound of the bowls, which attracted the attention of one of the bulls who seemed to get extremely angry and started coming toward us. 😅
Raphael and I climbed over the fence, and the bowl came relatively close, but all the way up to the fence.
🙃
I probably shouldn’t piss off the bulls when the fence is kind of rickety. 😆
Anyway, not wanting to incite an incident, only having fun trying to communicate, but apparently not communicating effectively, I stopped, and we kept walking a good little ways until we managed to get a decent, I’ll be at distant, view of the falls.
Having already walked tens of thousands of steps for the day, I wasn’t quite in the mood to scramble to the bottom for a better view, so we just stared at it for a little bit, chatted, and then wandered back to the vehicles.
As we were heading back, I noticed that my fuel level was dangerously low, and I had a very long way to go to get out of the middle of nowhere and back to a petrol station. 😅
So I pulled over at the entrance to Mount Damper Falls to let Raphael know the situation.
As we were chatting, we saw a late teen something next to her car, and she came over, German girl… forget her name… and we chatted with her for a good little while.
She looked a fair bit like one of the students I had in my Spanish class. I used to have two students who stayed after school nearly every day to learn more Spanish, and when this girl laughed, holy moly, that smile was the spitting image of the older girl. It was nutty.
After a while, the girl’s family came back, and we all chatted for a little bit before the dad mentioned they needed to get going. So Raphael and I headed out, I doing everything I could to use as little fuel as possible on the long ride down the mountain from the middle of nowhere to the coast.
Gratefully, I made it all the ways to a fuel station, but unfortunately, it was one of those that only had the automatic payment machine, and it wouldn’t accept my credit card.
So we ended up driving another maybe 10 km down the road, fingers crossed that I wouldn’t run out of fuel, until we got to yet another station, but it also was a self-pay only, which… doesn’t work with my cards.
Gratefully, Raphael used his card and got me enough gas to get me to the next place we needed to go, and I sent him money via PayPal to cover it.
Interestingly, the place we ended up heading to to stay the night was the same place that chase and I and the Austrian girls had played poker late at night a few years ago after Chase and I had gone to a gazillion different stores exchanging bills for coins (Lake Rotomanu Freedom Camping).
Another one of those fun memories that was also… a painful one (again, my fault).
We didn’t end up staying in exactly the same place, as it was completely full, but we did find a couple of open spots down below amidst a massive crowd of freedom campers. 😶
The parking situation was a little awkward, with me pulling up more into the middle, so Raphael could have room to park behind me without being in the way of the big RV that was next to us on the one side.
What a day!
Lift the world.
Bring it on.
~ stephen
Lift the World 