Though we had briefly considered lingering another day in our fantastic surroundings, we decided the next morning to press on. So, after coffee and packing up, we continued our quest to get lost in the forest. The drive continued to be beautiful, and we stopped several times to picnic along the way. The dogs were having the time of their lives romping in several streams and chasing sticks.
Eventually we started to climb even higher, and we could feel the temperature drop. The cliff off the side of the road began to get steeper and steeper and we began to see glimpses through the trees of the jewel of Te Urewera, Lake Waikaremoana. This crazy lake is formed in a bowl of mountains, and is over 500 m above sea level. There is a circuit walk around the lake that takes around 4 days and is considered one of New Zealand’s Great Walks. We were not prepared to do such a long walk, so we contented ourselves with pulling over and taking photos at all the picnic areas, including a gorgeous waterfall pouring over the side of a cliff down into the lake. We stopped in at the DOC visitor centre to see if there were any short walks that we could take the dogs on, but were told unfortunately no, so we headed out of the park.
After more twisting and turning we reached our first hint of civilisation - pavement!. A brief stop in Wairoa for groceries and we were off to find our campsite for the night. i was hoping to stay at the Waikare River Mouth, a free DOC site. After a 13 km gravel drive through a station we arrived. The campsite was deserted and small, but lovely. We parked next to the river’s boat ramp and let the dogs out to romp. I noticed there were some hornets buzzing next to the van, but they didn’t appear to be interested in us, so we decided to ignore them. (Why yes, that is foreshadowing)
Sonny cooked a gourmet (for the road) dinner of curry with beef and broccoli and we ate contentedly. After dinner I proposed we lock the dogs in the van and do the 2 km trek to the ocean and the river mouth. It was a narrow farm path that wound up over the headlands through sheep pastures and eventually opened unto a completely deserted beach. It ended up being the most magical experience. The sun was setting, casting an orange and purple glow onto the bluffs on either side of the river mouth, and the driftwood-strewn beach was empty save for us. Waves crashed into the shore, rippling through jewel tones as the reflected the painted sky above. Mist from the waves cast a hazy feel to everything and the sound of sea birds was a melody to the wave’s beat. It was all so utterly beautiful it made me cry a bit. Sonny let me have my moment as long as he could stand, then urged a return journey as “there was too much sand.” As we ambled back to van, I decided I could rest happy, my soul was that much more full.
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