Our first stop after Copland was Okarito - a nice little village just by the sea. On our agenda was:
· Kayaking in the lagoon
· 3 hour hike up the hill and on the beach
· Cave/tunnel walk
All these activities took place on the same day, so it was a full day! J
We started the day with the kayaking. Again I was teamed up with Phil. I was very happy for that, since we have a calm way of handling everything (yeah - I know guys, I’m usually NOT that calm, but I can actually be that in between and I prefer the calmer me). We just paddled on the beautiful lagoon, enjoying the sunshine, looking at birds and laughing at our fellow travellers. Let’s just say that we exchanged the least amount of words in our kayak – there were quite a lot of discussions on the other ones. The other kayaks were also competing of who would be the first, so they were really pushing themselves. They even tried to paddle over a log, see below. ;-) We just paddled softly through the water enjoying the scenery and the nice weather.
You need to know one thing about our group – on all the hikes we have had a tendency to get lost. Mostly someone in the front got occupied in some kind of discussion and forgot to look for signs and the rest of the group just followed. We told our kayaking guide, Gemma, about this behavior, so she was just laughing when we after only 15 min of kayaking already were going in the wrong direction. In the end of our kayak trip Phil and I were behind the others (as we had been for most of the time) and we saw how the other kayaks went the wrong way. But for once we were not just following. Instead we went the right way and laughed when we saw our friends pulling the kayaks out of the shallow waters where they were not supposed to be. Needless to say – we were first back to the harbor, which was a bit funny since we were the ones not competing.
After the kayaking we went on a hike up the hill. Ken, our tour leader, told us we would do a small detour. ;-) The detour was 3,6 km! Uphill!!! Well – at least half of it was uphill. But the reward was a couple of minutes without any breath and breath taking views. J The final part of the hike we walked on the beach. Talk about workout. When you think about it – we had a full body workout that day; with the kayaks in the morning and the beach walk in the afternoon. We were also lucky enough to see some seals. One of the seals jumped out just in front of me and scared me to death, but it was so nice to see it heading for the water.
After the hill and beach hike we had one more activity for the day: the cave/tunnel walk. When we arrived at the trail head Ken told us that we would have 45 min walk uphill. Hmmm… I wasn’t in a mood for another uphill hike, but I didn’t want to complain, so I just started to walk. Luckily we were a fast group and made the hike in only 23 minutes. In fact we did ALL our hikes faster than what was stated from the beginning. When we arrived at the tunnel Ken told us to put on the head torch and walk through the one km long tunnel. I wasn’t totally comfortable with the walk. It was very dark and we walked through water that reached up to my ankles. When we reach the other side of the tunnel Ken told us to turn around and do the walk in the tunnel without our head torch on!!! “Really!!! Come on!! I thought it was difficult enough to do it with the head torch on.” But the goal was to see glow worms and you don’t see them with the torch one. So I did like the rest and headed down the tunnel again with no torch. And to my surprise I saw a lot of glow worms and it wasn’t as bad as I expected. But it is safe to say that I wasn’t too comfortable.
We ended our multi activity day with another nice dinner prepared by Jac and once again I ate far more than I should. I especially liked her pine apple pie. J What can I say – Life is good!
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