Our first stop today was Constant Bay, and we were a little disappointed as it was a small cove and the sea water seemed rather scummy. We therefore continue along the road and came across a huge expanse of beach, with crashing waves and rocks striking up from the sea. This did look impressive, and we had a quick wander along it. I almost lost my phone at this point, messing about climbing up the rocks to and from Wendy.
Next, the delightful SH67 took us uphill and we came across a lookout that gave wonderful views in both directions along the coast - to one side the long bay we'd just come from, and to the other side was a sloping cliff with curious layer or strata marks. The lookout was rather busy with a coach load of 'Pacific Tourists' so we didn't linger and moved on swiftly to the Truman track, 20 minutes or so further along.
The coach must have a little more power than Wendy as it arrived very shortly after we did. To beat the crowds, we quickly grabbed our belongings and scooted down the track, pleased to arrive to a deserted beach. This beach had pebbly-sand and some overhanging cliffs which had been eaten away by waves below. I climbed down to the beach under this natural 'roof' and paddled a bit in the shallows of the waves. A waterful was sprouting out of the cliff further along, so obviously this had to be investigated too. I was regretting having worn a skirt at this point in the day, as clambering over rocks is not a particularly gracious activity, and by now we had an audience of forty or so Pacific Tourists lurking in the cliff overlooking the beach.
Waterfall investigated, we made our way back across the beach, stopping to pose for a quick photo in te wake of the foamy waves. Extremely unluckily for me, a particularly huge wave manifested itself at this point, and turning to look I decided there was an imminent need to run up the beach to avoid an impromptu swim, in a skirt, on a 'Too Dangerous to Swim' beach. This I duly did (to the great amusement of the tourists on the cliff), and feeling highly embarrassed we shuffled off back up he track to Wendy. When we opened Wendy I was distressed to realise that I had lost my phone, and had vague memories of hurriedly putting it in my pocket to take to the beach, before the wave shenanigans began. This was a horrible thought, as earlier this morning I had demonstrated that just walking over rocks was enough to send it careering from my pocket onto the sand, let alone dashing away from a wave!
So, and confusing many of the Pacific Tourists now returning up the track, I pessimistically made my way back along the track towards the beach to retrieve my likely-drowned phone. Almost at the beach, I was *incredibly* relieved to come across one of the more switched-on PTs who asked me if I was returning to find a phone, as so-and-sos granddaughter had found one about to be immersed in a wave. Yes! Switching from resenting the many people being around to suddenly being glad there were so many around to find my belongings for me, I gratefully received my phone from the tour leader (who, incidentally, had found my Road ID app lock screen and was already using it to call Peter (or my mother!), a definite plug for that fabulous app).
Incident averted, we waved goodbye to the PTs and drive along to Pancake Rocka. Not really knowing what these were, we parked up Wendy and set off on the circular track. The rocks turned out to be stacks and cliffs formed by uplift and compression, creating curious layers about 50mm thick. These made for some great photos (none will feature in this blog today as I didn't dare take my phone with me!) and we managed to stay ahead of the PTs which wa an a extra bonus.
Moving on, we took a break from being tourists and headed to Countdown to stock up on food. Greymouth turned out to be as exciting as it sounds, so a petrol fill and five minute wifi stop later (free wifi is lacking in South Island) and we were leaving for more beautiful places.
These were found in the form of Okarito, where we decided to challenge ourselves and halve the time designated to the trig walk (4.2km, 1h 30min). We made good time to the top, getting there in 25 minutes and had a short rest to take in the view of what I would call a spit, which had a lagoon forming behind it and a sky blue glacial river mouth within the lagoon and round the end of the spit. I think we could have made it down in 20 minutes but we took very brief pauses to try to sight a Kiwi (unsurprisingly we didn't see one, but I was frightened by a stunning White Heron) so our total time was 47 minutes. Not bad.
Feeling for food, we carried on right to our campsite in Franz Josef. Here we cooked our stir fry and enjoyed the sunset - the evening feeling particularly long as it must be around the winter solstice here, and the weather was excellent.
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