The morning was magical.
The end of November is late spring in New Zealand. You know what that means? Babies. This little feller is the first Oyster Catcher chick of the season! Our guide Tim spotted him for the first time on our tour and whipped the bus around to take us closer. Oyster Catcher parents are fiercely protective as we had learned when Brent got dive bombed a few times by some angry parents back in Kaikoura when he unknowingly wandered too close to their nest.
Aw, twins.
And then a quick trip to Cape Farewell, the actual northernmost point on the island, and we were on our way back to Skyla and out of Collingwood.
It was late morning and we had to make some decisions that would affect the rest of our trip. My friend Mark spent several months in New Zealand a while ago and stayed for a bit at an organic tea tree farm while hitchhiking. He impressed upon me that if I was ever close to the farm that I had to look up the couple that owned it and go visit them. Nicest people in the world, he said. But if we were going to visit them, it would be a couple hundred kilometers out of the way, and we'd only get to stay with them for one night. I'd called them and left a voicemail, but before I received a return call, we'd decided that we just didn't have enough time to make it out to see them. It was a hard decision, but when you only have two weeks to spend in a place that it takes years to properly explore, there are lots of hard decisions.
So we got on the road to the next place. Hokitika was only about 260 miles away, but New Zealand roads are windy and speed limits are strict. We didn't want to waste any money on speeding tickets, and we were heavily warned that they're distributed liberally. Brent took the wheel for the first time and seemed super comfortable immediately. I'd driven a few miles one night on a beer run, and that was plenty for me. The memories of a little fender bender I had once in Ireland are still vivid, and I was not eager to drive. So Jesse had been doing all of the driving. In addition to fearlessness, the Smiths apparently like to drive. We were keeping a good pace, eager to get our first glimpse of the west coast. New Zealand obviously isn't huge, but the coasts are vastly different.
And then came the point when crossing through a small town that we realized we had made a wrong turn. It was as simple as taking highway 60 instead of highway 160. Nothing was ruined. We weren't turned around. We were just taking a more direct route toward the city that was the ultimate goal for the night, and that meant that we were bypassing the most amazing part of the west coast and several points of interest along the way. In order to get to the sightseeing spots we'd planned we would have to backtrack about 84kms in total. Morale dropped. I got the call from the tea tree people, expressing their sadness that we had decided we just couldn't take the detour and going on about what a nice young man that Mark was. My morale was boosted, but the general air in the car was tense. Jesse had spent weeks pouring through the guidebooks and making notes and plans and routes, and a mistake like this annoyingly crossed things off of the master list. And to add insult to injury, she was relaxing in the back seat for the first time. Brent and I both thought we were cooking right along on track, but shit, I should've been paying more attention. But no! Brent was determined. He would drive fast and we would make it to the coast before sunset and backtrack up the coast and see everything! And we did. The Pancake Rocks were the main goal.
I was often taking a video when the twins didn't know it.
We planned to freedom camp again, but once more, it's challenging to find a good spot in the dark. En route to Hokitika we stopped by a glowworm cave so Brent could see them even though we had already. And then we finally found a good spot to park overnight, sardining it since it was raining. Eighteen-hour day SUCCESS.
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