November 8th
Yesterday we arrived in Kaiokura about noon and to no one's surprise found it to be yet another beautiful New Zealand town, with the primary difference being the addition of the ocean to the mountains. Today we decided to give “tramping” a shot, tramping being the kiwi version of a hike. The hike recommended by the front desk we were told would take us approximately 3.5 hours....they were wrong! I should mention that our first funny story happened while in discussion with the desk receptionist, Whom after informing us of the estimated duration of 3.5 hours was asked by the only and only joe if we would make it home before dark. It gets dark here around 9 pm...it was noon. duh
Our hike turned out to be amazing. I've never seen so much dramatic changed in landscape in such a short distance, see the pictures for what i mean. Most of the “beach” here is made of bedrock and limestone which when tide is out makes a HUUGE flat rock that you can walk on and see all the see life that was there when tide was in. We also trekked a section of the beach where a group of seals live and got lots of up close pictures; in fact one particular seal was hiding in a rock that i was walking by. Apparently i got a little too close (about 5 feet away) and we simultaneously terrified each other...a great show for gina and joe behind me.
We decided to stray the beated path for a bit and climbed a very big hill (well i did...joe and gina made it halfway) and go some great shots. Joe subsequently named my hill climbing conquest as “doover mountain” after its conquistador! On the return trip we terraced the mountain cliff and walked along the cliff back to our home base. Probably the most notable part of this portion was the walk through the mountain cow pasture and the inevitable obstacles seen in any cow pasture! i should also mention that we stopped for lunch at a guy's hut on the road and had fresh scallops and “mussel sandwiches”
It turns out in the end that joe was actually reasonable in his question to the lady at the front desk because as it turns out we didn't get home until dark. Mostly because joe decided to take 1000 pictures...that is not and exaggeration, he actually shot 1000 pictures in 7 hours. Keep that in mind if he convinces you to “see pictures from his trip” ;)
