tramping new zealand

No rush to get up. With an 11 am or so high tide there was no way I’d be able to walk far along the beach in either direction.

By the time I’d ambled onto the beach, in the sunshine, waves were rolling up both Doughboy River to the south, and the creek to the north. I walked down the beach as far as where the track peels off up Doughboy Hill, and on the way back picked up some firewood. Lots of plastic on the beach. Also lots of pumice from, I wasn’t sure where.

At least I knew the distinctive silver beech driftwood had drifted down from the South Island. There are no beech trees on Rakiura.

It’s been a few days, five actually, since my last rest day at Long Harry.

Another cloudless morning, and that can’t go on much longer. No reason to do much except get the fire going, maybe have another shave.

I’ve caught up on all I need to read about the killing of wild herbivores with the hut literature, more based on the hunters’ requirements than the scientific reading yesterday literature.

Afternoon?

More wood gathering. Walk the beach later when it becomes available. Probably an afternoon snooze. At least my clothes and sleeping bag will be dry.

No snooze. By the time I traipsed all the way to the end of the beach, and then spent an hour or so going around the rocks in my safety footwear, jandals, and then returned, much of the afternoon was over.

I gathered a plastic bag of the blue mussels from some rocks, and boiled them up for an entrée before my standard dinner.

Oh, and I did have a shave and washed a few things that were able to be dried. The fire has managed to dry the hut out, and is quite different tonight than last night’s cold, and damp feeling on arrival.

Still no clouds in the sky. How long can that last?

For some reason my four stays here have coincided with fantastic weather.

So. Beach. Sun. Mussels.

Walking without a pack. Just a beach holiday I was after.

Just a perfect, memorable day.