snapshots abroad: New Zealand - Leaving the South

This will be a short-ish post. We had to be up early. Actually, everybody in the hut had to be up early. Those heading further north on the track had to cross the bay at low tide or else they'd have to swim as the coast has 5-meter tides. When we arrived last night at around 6 pm the bay was dry which made getting to the hut very easy. Because we had to be picked up by the water taxi at a specific site per park regulations, we had to cross the tidal area in the opposite direction where there is an actual beach. This meant, unfortunately, that we'd have to wait approximately 3 1/2 hours on the beach without shelter because the pick-up time was at 10:30 am and low tide was at around 6 am (it was an hour-long walk to the beach site).

Waiting aside, we had another beach completely to ourselves and the beach combing at Awaroa was just as good as at Onetahuti the day before. The only bad part was New Zealand's famous sand flies. They were awful! Once the sun was up they emerged and seemed to go right for me. Ridiculous as I looked, I put on all of my rain gear, my fuzzy hat (my ears were cold), my bug net hat, and my rain coat hood. There wasn't much to do once I had all of the stuff over my face and also sunglasses so I just laid in the sand and watched the bugs try and fail to land on my face. Little shits. Hans wasn't bothered as much but he paid for any exposed skin later because his legs got bit BIG time.

While we waited we ate the leftover fruit from the night before and discovered that gold kiwifruit taste like CANDY. Whoah.

So the boat came. We got back to Marahau, had lunch, drove to Picton, and put the rental car on the Interislander ferry to Wellington. We've had a great time on the south island and we're looking forward to exploring the north island. The rest of this trip is going to fly by!