(written on the… 5th 😕 from notes taken previously)
Yesterday, the district council people (or whichever government agency they were working for) told me about this free campsite, one of the guys said it was a really beautiful place and that I would love it.
He wasn’t wrong. 😊
Yes, it was quite crowded (less so by the time I got up 🙃), but it was also very beautiful. There was a lovely little river winding its way through the green inland hills down to a very deep beach (over a thousand feet from water to vegetation in some places) with towering cliffs lining the northern end of the little bay.
When I first looked out of my windshield this morning, the van that was in front of me and the man and woman with it looked like maybe the French people from last night?
I couldn’t tell for sure. 🙃
I decided I wanted to walk down to the beach, so I locked up my van, wandered down the gentle hill toward the river, waded across the very cold river, and passed a woman who was just sitting on the sand as I wandered down to the water.
The waves were coming in beautiful sets, and I was surprised to see surfers out there, not because it didn’t make any sense to have surfers out there with beautiful waves, but more that I was thinking of myself as being in a campground and hadn’t really even thought about the location as being a surfing destination, being so far away from civilization. 🙃
I wandered back past the woman who was on the beach to my own little spot near the very back of one of the deepest spots on the beach just before the vegetation, sitting my little butt down on the sand and beginning to stretch a little bit.
I even did some pushups. 🙃
I hung out there for a pretty decent little while before walking back across the little river up to The Golden Kiwi and heading out.
At first, I was just going to leave, but I sort of caught myself, realizing that I was skipping another dirt road out to a different beach, so I turned around and headed over to a little inlet named Helena Falls Beach.
Given the name, I had expected to see a waterfall cascading down to the beach somewhere, which I believe was part of, maybe most of?) my reason for even going to that beach; But after making my way through some swampy vegetation, and then walking along a little creek that went down to the beach, it was just another little beach, no waterfall in sight.
Which begs the question… why the name? 🤔
🤷
From Helena Falls Beach, I headed over to Matai Falls, driving up and over the beautiful green hills that dominate so much of New Zealand (though admittedly, less green than other areas because we’re on the east side of a large mountain range 🙃).
I want to say that Chase and I went to this particular Falls when I was here last, as I thought we went to pretty much every waterfall in the area, but I have absolutely zero memory of this one. 🤷
It wasn’t a very memorable falls, so maybe that’s why I don’t remember it. 🙃
Got this picture while out there, though. 😊
Matai was the first of four different waterfalls I walked to today. 🙃
The next one up was McLean Falls, a short walk from a side road and after passing by Papatowai DOC Camp on the main road, a place I remember staying at last time with Chase.
Memories 😊
The parking lot was quite crowded for McLean Falls, but it wasn’t so crowded up at the waterfall. I guess I must have gotten there with most people walking back from the falls. 🙏
It was a beautiful falls, with several stages the lower one just being called “the chute,” I think it was?
I took pictures of that on the way back…
After spending a fair bit of time at the main falls.
I spent a little longer than I might have at the waterfall because there was an older couple, maybe in their ’70s, with the man leading the way up a little Rock scramble/mini cliff, his wife following behind, but he had taken a much more challenging route, and much more dangerous route than was necessary, so I came over and suggested that she come back down from where she was and go up a different spot.
Older people don’t do so well when they fall, especially the lady folk who much more frequently suffer from osteoporosis than so men. 😬
Gratefully, she made it up just fine in the new spot, with me down below ready to catch just in case. 😅
My next stop was over at Koropuka Fall, another Falls I would figure that Chase and I went to, but another one that I don’t remember at all. 🤔
The falls itself wasn’t really notable to me (perhaps again why I don’t remember?), but the path to it certainly was. It was a super narrow path, barely wide enough for one person, through relatively thick undergrowth with a significant portion of the trail made out of sections of tree fern trunks (presumably, to give traction on an otherwise muddy path, as the tree fern trunks were soft, so that they would squish underneath your feet but give you stability while walking).
The final falls of the day was just before one of my major destinations of my entire trip in New Zealand, and it was one that I hadn’t even heard about, I don’t think, last time I was here.
Niagara Falls.
Obviously so named as a joke by a surveyor who’d seen the U.S./Canadian falls and wanted to be funny.
🙃
From there, I was off to Porpoise Bay, hoping to recreate one of my all-time favorite experiences–swimming with dolphins.
Last time, I had gone out with Chase’s GoPro and my snorkel mask, boogie boarding out to the dolphins and just hanging out with the curious little critters who seemed to be intrigued by the squeak that I deliberately made with my boogie board.
They swam around and beside me over and over and over again. I want to say there were maybe five of them? I don’t remember for sure.
It was an absolutely marvelous experience–a life highlight. 😊
I had heard earlier on my trip this time that others had gone and not seen any, and when I went today, I was hoping to see some, and gratefully, I did see a few.
There were either two or three. I never saw more than two at the same time, I don’t think, I saw two together, and then I would see one by itself, so I don’t know if there was one that was separate from the two, or if the one that I saw by itself was one of the two.
Hoping for a great experience, and having a lot more trust in my mask this time than I did last time (the darn thing just kept fogging up on me last time, if I remember correctly), and with the wind being so strong, and without me having a leash for my boogie board, I decided to try going out with just my snorkel and wetsuit (very cold water as the next major land mass to the South, though a fair bit away, is… Antarctica. 🙃)
I stayed out there trying to connect with the dolphins for a good little while, my best experience being the very first when shortly after getting in the water, one of the dolphins swam right toward me and right under me.
I could have reached out and touched it with my hand as it went directly under me, but I decided against it.
Super cool experience, though, despite lasting only a second.
No video this time, and no boogie board with me to try and coax it back with a squeak.
Even with my wetsuit, it was probably only an hour or so before I was cold enough to decide to pack it in.
I think I only saw a glimpse of a dolphin maybe once more after that first encounter. The water was also really cloudy. I don’t remember whether it was that cloudy last time? I don’t think so?
It was a little disappointing to spend so much time out there and for the dolphins to be so elusive and so few in number.
Reconnecting with those dolphins was something I’d been looking forward to my entire trip.
😕
I chatted with some other travelers for a little bit, hung out in my van with the heater on to warm up for a little while, and then drove up to The lookout point where you can see both Curio Bay and Porpoise Bay.
I hung out there for a good little while, warming up, veging out a bit, etc.
The waves coming in from the south looked cold and dark and relatively ferocious.
And the wind was strong and cold.
Beautiful area. 😊
I finally started heading out as it got later in the evening. Planning to go to church tomorrow, and the nearest church being all the way in Invercargill, I decided to spend the night at a place that was as close as I could get but still free.
That led me first to Toetoes Harbor, to a freedom camping spot near the water, but then after reading some of the freedom camping reviews, I read that you could go all the way up to the Cliffs at Fortrose, so I drove up there, carefully making my way through the deeply rutted dirt road to a smoother grassy spot at the top of the cliffs.
I spent the rest of the evening just veging out, and periodically hopping out of my van to snap a picture before jumping back in relatively quickly because of the cold fierce winds.
Lift the world.
Bring it on.
~ stephen
Lift the World 