We decided to stay another night at our lovely POP stop and just travel around the area having a look today. First on the agenda was the Nugget Point Light House. The drive was fairly easy, parking a little tricky, but what a sight to behold. It looks like it is perched on top of a huge cliff.
All the area around it is also steep. Out to see are the “nuggets” – little islands that the settlers likened to nuggets of gold (hence the name).
The cliffs lead to rocky beaches below. A beach on the western side appeared to be a nursery for young seals as there were about 15 of them there, and they seemed quite playful at times. Unfortunately, it was too far below us to get a decent photo of them.
The scenery around the area is wonderful with huge vistas down the coast, but my eye was always drawn to the light-house perched on top of the sheer cliff.
Next on the itinerary was Tunnel Hill. This was a tunnel hand-built by miners in the late 1800’s for the railroad that no longer uses it, so it is now a tunnel to nowhere. It was quite a long tunnel and very dark. The brickwork was impressive, but as we could not actually see a lot, there is not a lot more to say.
Purakaunui Falls was next on the list. These falls are beautiful, and the walk into them, through native bush, was also lovely.
These falls are tiered, and quite wide, but at this time there is not a lot of water flowing over them as there has not been rain for a few weeks.
Final trip for the day was to Jack’s Blowhole. This is a 55m deep hole but it is also 200m inland, which makes it quite unique. The walk in was pretty challenging – pretty hard on the knees and a lot of quite steep hill climb, but we were assured by fellow walkers that it was worth it, so we kept going. The path was through private farmland, so the dogs could not accompany us on this walk.
I would have to say that the photos do not do this blow-hole justice. It was also not seen at its most impressive as the seas were calm and there was no wind driving the waves. If there had been it would have been really spectacular.
The air was full of salt spray and the sound of the waves was amplified by the steep walls around the blowhole. In addition, there was the sound of birds, particularly bell birds, from the bush around.
Once again the scenery around us as we walked back was just lovely, and somewhat made up for the fatigued legs.
Once completing that walk we headed back to the POP stop feeling that we had done enough, and in fact had probably done quite well. We got back and sorted out our little camp and then took the dogs for a walk. They were having lots of fun chasing sticks when I happened to see the sand moving off to my right. A closer look revealed a large seal so the dogs were quickly tied up.
One of our camp mates had collected mussels a few hours before we arrived back, and kindly gave us some, so it was mussel fritters for tea! The end of a great day.
Away From Home NZ 