Road Trip: Day Four

After showering and feeding some ducklings around the camper, we drove into the town to board our water taxi at 10.30am. 

 After launching, the boat took us first to Split Apple Rock, a popular tourist destination when visiting the Tasman region. Our skipper explained that this was once a huge boulder that would probably have been split when a crack down its centre filled with water, froze and expanded, causing the two halves to be pushed apart.

We whizzed off to the bay of Anchorage next, jumping off the taxi and watching it zoom back out to sea to drop the rest of the passengers further round the coast. Walking along the yellow sand, we were joined by a couple of oyster-catchers and a seagull who, like me, were enjoying dipping their toes in the frothy sea.

At the end of the beach, we found a sign with the different destinations you could reach on your walk, depending on which direction you took. We intended to walk back to the town, marked 'Marahau - 4 hours' on the sign. But a destination called 'Cleopatra's Pool', 1 hour and 15 mins in the opposite direction, sounded like a good spot to have our sandwiches! A decision which was later regretted since we didn't factor in walking back and the pool didn't turn out to be the glittering blue lagoon we'd pictured (still a lovely pool, but an experience slightly marred after I dropped my shoe in the water crossing the river to get to it).

So our walking time was altered to more like 7 hours. My feet were not happy. A four hour walk had sounded relatively easy and we would have been stopping off at the various bays positioned along the way and had plenty of chance to rest. But the day was getting on and we wanted to be back before dark! We managed to stop at one beach, Stillwell Bay, and I enjoyed a run on the sand, joining gulls in a pool made by a stream flowing into the sea, while Martin and Brendan looked on in amusement. Here we ate the rest of our sandwiches and bathed our feet in the stream, discovering many pretty shells to fill our pockets with in the process.

As we neared Marahau, my knees started to seize up, not being used to walking such distances. I stopped at every opportunity possible, the boys having to literally lift me off a picnic bench I'd decided to have a nap on at one point.

We got there in the end though, even if Martin did have to go on ahead to get the camper and save my legs a bit! We were rewarded back at camp by a big bowl of beans and chorizo followed by a Magnum ice-cream :)