Day 3 – 10/27

I woke up at 3 AM to the sounds of wild horses in the camp. I was in bed early the night before, so being unable to get back to sleep I got out and took a couple pictures of the stars.

The decision to start early was largely based on high tide being at 9 AM, we hoped to get to road that parallels the beach to walk on during high tide, which is about 5 km from camp, and we really had to be there before 8 to keep from being pinned between the waves and dunes.

The walk there was nice, finding the road (which we later found out we shouldn’t have been on) was a little tricky and required some playing in the dunes, but we figured it out. The initial wooded area was nice at first but then got into some logged areas which weren’t as nice. I made my way back to the beach, but being Labor Day weekend in NZ, there was a lot of traffic on the beach and my feet were very sore and swollen by the end of the 30 km hike. I’m recovering now back at Utea park.