(written on February 11th from notes taken previously).
Undisturbed. 🙏
No additional campers, no DOC workers, and no dead deer carcasses coming back to life to haunt me in the middle of the night. 🎉
After crossing the creek, I tried to follow what Google Maps told me were functional roads back toward civilization, thinking I’d head south–away from Kaikoura.
Well, the “road” turned out to be a bike trail that I thought was just a seldom used dirt road until I got to a bridge that was only wide enough for people and bicycles to go over. 🙃
There wasn’t really much room to do a u-turn, so I ended up backing up for a couple hundred meters to get back to a proper road.
Perhaps surprisingly, I ended up going back to Kaikoura to have a look around during the day.
I spent some time rock hopping at a place with a historic… chimney 🙃, chatting it up a bit with an Italian gentleman who mentioned that earlier he had seen, I think he said killer whales?
Then I popped over to Point Kean Viewpoint, which was absolutely slammed, and a lady in a large RV started yelling at me for being in the way of traffic (I was waiting for someone to back out of their parking spot so I could take it, since every other parking spot in the whole place was already taken).
Not a very happy lady. 😅
Spent a fair bit of time ocean rock hopping here as well, hanging out with a couple of seals that could care less that bunches of tourists were crowded around them–well, at least one of them. The other one was on a rock that required getting quite wet to go out to.
Which I did. 🙃
I snapped a whole bunch of pictures, wandered around the cool rock formations, hoping to find a way out to the furthest point of the peninsula without swimming (I was unsuccessful in those efforts 🙃).
I picked up some tidal trash and was grateful to have both trash and recycling bins in the parking lot when I got back to the car park. 🙏
And with that, I was done with Kaikoura. 😆
I decided to drive back up the coast to that spot with the big waves and lots of surfers, parking on the long parking pull out that was clearly created for surfers to access the stellar break.
And oh my was it a stellar break!
The waves weren’t as big as yesterday, but they came in seemingly at angles and went forever, as they continued around the point to the beach. I watched as one woman rode a single wave for perhaps an entire minute!
Super cool!
And darn good surfer to boot. 😮
This was clearly a serious surfer spot, a fact that was confirmed as I chatted with a local surfer who was also a bit of a photographer–out with a pretty impressive camera setup (at least from the perspective of this cell-phone-only toting photographer 🙃).
He mentioned that this break Mangamanu is one of the two best breaks in all of the South Island, the other being Tauranga Bay on the West Coast just south of Cape Foulwind.
Here’s what the Surf Atlas has to say about the break I visited, but didn’t surf 🙃, today:
Mangamanu — Intermediate+
Mangamanu is the jewel in the crown of Kaikoura surf. Long and peeling left-to-righters flood the whole bay and come off the rocky point into a steady offshore breeze courtesy of the soaring Kaikoura Range that rises to the east. On other days, when the swell is more easterly, they turn into A-frames that are rippable in both directions. Line ups can be big, but the prize or waiting are some of the longest rides this side of Raglan. Oh, and the views are simply incredible, so you shouldn’t get bored!
I think they meant rises to the west (referring to the mountains that are to the west), but you get the idea. ☺️
I hung out there watching the surfers and chatting for a good little bit before heading back toward town to get gas and get out. 🙃
So I got gas, veged for a while at Kowhai River Beach, and then headed for the hills, snapping pictures along the way, and driving for about an hour on Highway 70 (also aptly-named Inland Rd 🙃) before crashing for the night, the lone vehicle parked at small dirt car park just past a bridge on the south side of the Wandle River with nothing but cows for company.
💤
Oh! I did drive back up the road briefly in the hopes of catching a lovely sunset.
Oh! And I saw these guys, too. 🙃
Lift the world.
Bring it on.
~ stephen
Lift the World 