I was an early riser this morning, getting up at 6:30 to work on the blog and charge my electronics in the kitchen shelter. The three people who came and went in the time I was there made a total of one cup of tea for breakfast. The last guy, apparently on his way to go fishing, was intrigued with my netbook and asked me about getting one for his kids in school. Impressively, he even asked me what operating system I was running. I told him I thought it was a good deal and I enjoyed the portability. Happy with my answers, he wished me "cheers!" and went on his way.
I woke up the rest of the group at 8:00 -- I knew Ian's watch alarm would never do it, even though we keep using it for some reason. We ate our cereal with lukewarm milk and found it to be actually pretty good. It was not, however, filling enough, so Ian and I picked up some eggs in town. We got back to discover that the cereal had in fact been enough for Wes and Zach -- they hadn't eaten all of it, at least -- which meant that I ended up eating five bowls of cereal and about four eggs' worth of scrambled eggs. Pretty good-sized breakfast there.
After breakfast we remembered we had seen a zip line in the camp. We walked over to try it out, but quickly realized we would have no shot at it unless we were willing to pull children away. Deciding against that option, we packed up the tent and headed out. Our first stop today was Gore Bay. This was a nice little beach town with absolutely no grocery stores but a beautiful view. We made one PBJ each with the last of our supplies and spent a few minutes sitting in the sand enjoying the view. I waded into the very cold surf to soothe my overly bug-bitten feet. The ocean felt nice and I was ready to get back on the road.
We stopped for groceries -- essentially just boysenberry jam to restock our PBJ supply -- in a town called Cheviot. A little more driving brought us to Kaikoura, which was our destination for today. The area was marked, at least on the coast, by large rocky outcroppings jutting out into the sea, over which waves break dramatically. It was a very scenic drive and we pulled over at a lookout on top of the peninsula to take in the view and eat a second round of sandwiches. As we ate we remembered that this was the day Kyle and his grandfather would be returning to the US. We hadn't seen them since the drive from that very buggy lake.
We went to the grocery store in town to get some vegetables for the sauce for our pasta tonight, then drove down the peninsula to a trail we had read good things about. The section of coast the trail covers is also a seal colony, and we saw about 50 seals while we were walking. I wish we could trade a few of them for penguins, but it's still cool to see seals. At the highest part of the trek, where we saw the full size of the colony, we got a good view straight down into the water. A rock shelf extended about 100 m from shore, never deeper than 50 cm or so.
There were big cracks spider-webbing their way all over the shelf, the finest details of which we could easily make out through the shallow water. It was a cool pattern and easily the highlight of the trail -- or at least the part of the trail we walked. We didn't have time to make the full 3-hour hike, so we turned around early and drove in search of a camp site for the night.
There were disappointingly few options for a while. There was a closed hostel in town and a lot of non-vacant motels (not that we would have stayed in one anyway). We passed a "Lodge and Tree Houses" that sounded awesome but looked pricey. Nothing else came by for a while and we wondered whether we should turn around. But then we passed a sign for Seaside Pottery and Accommodation, and noticed some campers parked on the side of the road. We pulled in and things looked promising. There were a lot of tents and no registration signs. We passed a sign which introduced the area as a community project and which urged us not to litter, but, saying nothing else, confirmed our hopes that we had just found FREE CAMPING! We pulled off the road just before Seaside Pottery and Accommodation, the unrelated business which would not be receiving our business after doing such a lovely job of drawing our attention to the area.
We found a good spot by a tree that was a little sheltered from the wind and rain that looked imminent. I was immediately happy with the location; while Zach drove the car around from where we had pulled off, my job was to stay and hold the site. I did so by climbing the shelter tree -- a very climbable one, as it turns out -- and reveled in the sound and site of the ocean waves rolling over rocks, the green texture of the grass, and the simple pleasure of climbing a tree. We started cooking right away, hoping to beat the rain. Even though we have both a pot and a skillet, we only have one stove, which means we have to cook our pasta and our sauce separately. Zach always does the pasta first, since the sauce will hold its heat better and will effectively warm up the pasta. At Lake Paringa, I drained the water from the pasta while Zach started the sauce, but we both thought afterward that we should have left the water in as an insulator. So we tried just that tonight. Zach pulled the spaghetti off early because the water would continue to cook it after it was off the flame. Unfortunately, this effect was more pronounced than Zach expected and the pasta was a little overcooked. Live and learn, I guess.
It was still a good meal. The sauce was tasty -- red pepper, onion, and mushrooms cut into sevenths, even though I was kidding about that request. It was lightly raining as we ate, and had been since we started cooking. The water combined with the growing darkness made us want to get in the tent as quickly as possible. Wes, Zach, and I grabbed our headlamps and made final rainproofing adjustments to the tent. Ian braved the elements, walking out to the sea to do dishes. He looked epic cleaning our plates while the wind howled and water splashed all around him. By his reports, the experience felt as adventurous as it looked.
We scratched our plan to play caveman poker, as our "chips" were quite soaked and we didn't want to make the tent any wetter than it was. Instead we played a quick game of BS, which I haven't played in a while. Zach won because none of us were paying attention as he played his final card and simply kept going, not calling him on it until it was too late (he had, in fact, lied). Our prize for the poker game was going to be the right to sleep in the dry car. Since we didn't end up playing for it, we decided to give it to Ian, who does not have a sleeping pad and seemed to most want to be in the car. The rest of us unfurled our pads in the tent, giving us a nice dry surface, and went to sleep.
Something from a tree I climbed got stuck in my eye. This was my attempt to find it.
Also, thanks for reading the blog Eric and Patricia ;)
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