November 18th, 2019
Last night I stayed at a pretty nice spot called “Hillside
View” run by a guy named Kev. It was $10
per person which was well worth it with a nice grassy flat area, a kitchen made
from a couple of small converted shipping containers and hot showers (which
were $2 per 4 minutes but that was also well worth it). It was a peaceful setting with some cows and
sheep just over the fence from where I parked.
Not too far away from Kev’s place was an abandoned railroad
tunnel that looked worth checking out.
As I arrived in the parking lot I noticed a couple of sheep ducking under
the fence into another field and then the escape was on! One after another they crept under, leaving some
of their wool on the fence which will at least make it easy for the farmer to
know where repairs are required.
The Great Escape:
I stopped them in their tracks...
The tunnel was constructed by hand in the late 1800s. Incredible that it was dug out solely by
pickaxe, shovels and wheelbarrows, plus all the bricks that were laid, and it’s
246 meters long! What a lot of work for
70 or so men. The railway line was
primarily for the transportation of lumber and perhaps they didn’t manage the
forests so well as by 1971 the industry was finished and the line decommissioned. Pretty fun to walk through now though.
Afterwards I headed towards Nugget Point Lighthouse but saw
a sign for “Cannibal Bay”. Well how can
that not entice you. I wondered how it
got its name. The gravel road leading
some 7 km down to the bay had great views and lots of sheep (par for the course
in this country). Looking on the
CamperMate app, there was a good chance of seeing sea lions resting on the
beach in the daytime. As I walked onto
the sand there was a big brown blob some 400 meters down the beach and sure
enough, he was having a good snooze.
What caught my attention even more though was further down there were
two seals who were playing in the surf.
It was so cool to watch them frolic in the water and catch the
occasional wave, riding it just below the surface. Further still down the beach was a sea lion
just exiting the water, ready for his repose.
Also fun to watch.
Seals playing in the surf.
As I drove on to the lighthouse, I decided to listen to one
of many podcasts that I had downloaded a few weeks ago for such occasions. Without even thinking, and I didn’t even clue
in until I was 15 minutes into the podcast of “Stuff you should know”, I
realized that I had picked the topic of “Survival Cannibalism”! Funny how the mind works.
The lighthouse is at the end of that peninsula.
The lighthouse is situated on a steep promontory and as I
pulled into the fairly full small parking lot, the heavens opened up. Hmm…do I wait it out or just move on. Well this spot was supposed to be something
good and after 10 minutes the precipitation abated a bit. Let’s do it.
As I walked the 900 meter trail to the lighthouse the conditions
improved even more and I no longer needed my umbrella. The lighthouse was built in the 1800s and
like most lighthouses around the world, it is fully automated now. It was relatively diminutive but what
attracts people here was just a little further along. A few hundred meters below was a collection
of jagged rock islands that were fantastic.
This is a place where you want to be a bird…seagulls were soaring about
and many of them were nesting on a few of the larger islets. Beautiful!
A dream come true...
Sometimes dreams become reality.
I stopped at a pretty waterfalls too called Parakaunui.
Whoops...had it on video mode. The actual selfie didn't turn out well.
From there I continued on to the next Campermate suggestion,
the eclectic Lost Gypsy Café. But that
place was so interesting and cool…that it requires its own blog entry!
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