We've made our way down to Greymouth, a seaside town in a region we previously explored five years ago. Tamar gets frequent deja vu as we rediscover the same spots (it's all new to me, yet another advantage of a poor memory.) Yesterday we walked 6km along the headlands of Cape Foulmouth from a seal colony to a lighthouse, with sprawling views of the coastline from our clifftop trail a hundred feet up. Tamar got to run most of it yesterday, so we went back today and I speed-walked it together with Aurora, who gamely trotted the distance in an hour and a quarter; along the way, we fed grass to a friendly horse, Aurora found a single ripe blackberry, and we played the ageless Norwegian game of "kykilliky!" (Aurora spells it kukeljky)
It was an eye-opening moment when we talked as a family about our favourite moments of the trip so far. The answers were mostly "ice cream" "the aquatic centre" "that one play in our game of Saboteur" "ice cream" "the book fair". Tamar exclaimed, "we didn't even need to leave Canberra! It would have been a lot cheaper to just get ice cream and go swimming every day!"
But there have been plenty of amazing NZ moments as well. We swam in a lake surrounded by mountains; climbed Mt Robert; saw Pancake Rocks and a fantastic blowhole; explored a dark cavern (we're in the last third of The Silver Chair, which features creepy Earthmen who live in the Underworld, so Tova was seriously spooked); got drenched by massive waves whose spray reached us twenty feet above sea level; played h-o-r-s-e until the basketball deflated...and, yes, have had three or four ice cream treats along the way. And it's only been four days!
Tomorrow we will explore Arthur's Pass, our one really mountainous excursion. While we'd originally planned to stay up there, everything is booked solid so we're forced to drive all the way back at night. Peak season is very different in price and availability than our autumn visit last time!
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| The ocean west of NZ just melts into the soy |
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| Pancake Rocks (not so pancakey in this picture) |
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| Aurora over Cape Foulwind |
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