Karamea, continued

The gorgeous weather today more than made up for yesterday's deluges. We walked the end part of the Heaphy Track, to Scott's Beach and back. The Tasman Sea was so wild we at first thought the seaspray shrouding the hills ahead of us was smoke from a forest fire (though how anything could burn after a meter of rain had us stumped). Waves crashed in line after line, the beach barely able to catch its breath before the sea's onslaught continued. We had never seen anything like it.


Scott's Beach, Heaphy Track 


The wild Tasman (the wave breaking on the shore is literally 5 feet high - almost as tall as me!) 


Tannin-tinted pond with Tasman Sea in background; Karamea, near the end of the Heaphy Track, South Island, New Zealand.  

After our Scott's Beach walk, we went back to the Oparara Basin and walked to Moria's Gate - an incredible limestone arch at the end of a path through a lush and pristine rainforest.


Highway into/out of Karamea. 

Our fine day ended at Drifter's - a tiny roadside restaurant in the tiny town of Granity. Drifter's has a big-city menu with tiny-city-friendly-like-your-best-neighbor service. As usual, we were sorry to be leaving this beautiful and charming area, the northwest of the South Island.

We got back into Greymouth fairly late, and in the interest of warmth, we all crammed into one phone booth to make reservations for the days ahead. Since Greymouth is so quiet, I'm afraid we were the evening's attraction: The one car out cruising drove past three times.

Love from NZ