Woke and made some coffee, Shabree was finishing packing up some things while I went outside to warm up in the little bit of sunlight poking through the trees. As I am standing there a figure appears on the trail coming out of the woods and says, "Hello Paul, how are you?", WTF, I am thinking who is this and I just stand there not saying a thing trying to figure it out. As he gets closer it is our hut warden Mike from the night before who had hiked out, turns out he had to come check on a bridge or something and was in the area, knew we were staying at Browns Hut and offered us a ride back into town to our car, what a guy! We both quickly packed the rest of our gear and jumped in our free ride back to town.
Mike is very nice and he made our trip back to Collingwood memorable…There was a cat along the side of the road Mike says "I think that's a wild cat" and he starts to turn the car around, we figure he is going to run it over since the cats kill native birds. We are surprised when he says "If you don't mind I would like to go to this store, it has been closed every time and is quite historic" sure we said. The store has been there for 82 years, and is a general store/antique store, grandma Palmer would love it! After browsing Shabree could no longer curb her chocolate craving so she got a chocolate and peanut bar, I got a Lea and Pepper(NZ'z most popular soda), and Mike got an Ice cream bar, we picked up Mike's ice cream bar, it was the least we could do for the ride. The owner of the store tells us about this beach that we should check out since the weather is fantastic, it's called Wharariki beach, sounds great and we say goodbye. Shabree starts saying how chocolate sure is good after along hike, Mike agrees and asks if we have been to the chocolate shop in Collingwood, no we say as Shabree's eyes get bigger! . Collingwood is a tiny town with a hostile, motor park and bar, nothing but the basics from what we had seen.
After great conversation with Mike on his future plans of coaching rugby over seas in Europe and wanting to get back into building homes we reached Collingwood. We tell him to take a right to our car, but he keeps driving and says "I want to show you that chocolate shop, do you mind?", "of course not!" we reply. The chocolate shop is called Rosy's Glow and is tiny in an old victorian style home, pink paint and old school wall paper from floot to ceiling with crown molding and 12 foot ceilings, really cute place and best of all was its two cases full of fresh treats. There is a big selection, Shabs gets chocolate and Caramel, Mike gets the same and a lime sour covered in chocolate, I get a turtle (chocolate, caramel, and walnuts). Very good, but very rich. Mike shares his lime sour with us and offers his spare room for us to stay. We did not want to take advantage of the guy so we told him thanks, but we are going to a DOC site tonight. At our car we exchanged information and see him on his way.
With our sunglasses on we head due west to this beach, the road is of course ridiculous with signs that read "4 one way bridges" all in a row, and mostly gravel. How ideal, we must have passed over 15 one lane bridges on the way and of course the bridges are curved so whether you have the right of way or not makes no difference because usually you have no clue if someone is on the other side, just slow and cautious with fingers crossed. The end of the road takes us to a parking lot in steep rolling hills of pasture land and a motor camp, we park our car and start walking through the pasture in our flip flops trying to avoid all of the sheep poo. It was a first for the both of us to access a beach through a sheep farm, but soon enough we see the effort was worth it. The dunes are big, the water is blue and there are big rocks jetting out of the ocean with seals napping on them, and best of all there were hardly and people the beach.
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| just as we hit the beach from the pasture land |
The sand is so fine it looks like powder sugar and is a very different color than the gold beaches of the Abel Tasman even though we are only about 20 kilometers north. There are arches and caves to explore for as far as we can see, with big stone cliffs and these crazy rocks that looked like concrete had been poured around a bunch of 2-3" round river rock and was slowly eroding away leaving just the rocks sticking out but firmly in place. We eat our lunch and soaked in the sunshine for a bit, before heading to check out an arch we had seen. The rocks are made up of sea life, barnacles, muscles, squishy things that stick to the rocks. Shabree loves to look and poke at things so and explore the tittle pools which were teaming with little organisms so she was happy. The scenery was so cool, and just looked fake. After a couple hours of exploring we were both exhausted and ready to find a place to sleep for the night.
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| Paul under an Arch |
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| So pretty |
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| shabree playing in the tide pools |
We headed back south toward our other favorite beach the Abel Tasman. We wanted to hike the top part of the park that was not part of the great walk, but we had heard was different and very beautiful. We heard it might rain tomorrow so we went to sleep hoping it is only a drizzle.
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