Gemstone Beach and Monkey Island

After leaving Manapouri we headed further south towards the coast, intending to spend a night at Monkey Bay. This was a distance of 102 kilometers, and in all that time we must have shared the road with 3, maybe 4, other vehicles. One of those was a red van, converted into a bit of a camper that stopped at the Clifden Suspension bridge at the same time we did. It was driven by a delightful lady who had a four month old puppy that Beau was pretty keen to have a game with.

The Cliften Suspension Bridge was built in1898 at a grand cost of 5007 pounds sterling, as a reliable way of crossing the fast flowing Waiau River. It was converted to a walking bridge in 1978 when a new concrete, 2 lane bridge was built just down the road a bit.

The bridge still seems remarkably sturdy considering it is 133 years old!

Next stop was Gemstone Bay, just outside of Orepuki. We decided to leave the dogs in the van for this excursion as I did not want to risk them pulling me off balance and re-injuring my hip, which still has not recovered fully.

Grandson Theo would love this place. There were rocks of every shape and colour, and the beach has been known to yield garnets and jasper. It is best to go at low tide, but unfortunately we were there at high tide and as a result had to spend a bit of time dodging incoming waves.

Despite the fact that I did not manage to find any garnets (I was very disappointed with this) the beach lived up to it’s name. There were some good finds and Bruce had to find some more room in the boot for our growing collection of rocks.

Last stop for the day was Monkey Island. It is a bit of a stretch to call it an Island really as it is a bit of a hill that is accessible from the beach at low tide. Apparently it got its name because Monkey winches were used to hoist boats out of the sea onto the island. There are no traces of the winches now, but some wooden stairs have been built to the top of the knob as a lookout. The mountains in the distance are part of Fiordland.

We took the boys for a walk on the beach before low tide and they enjoyed having a run and a play around. We took them up to the rocks at the base of Monkey Island and Beau had a go at walking on water, only to find he couldn’t and had to swim for it. Hunter, in the meantime went rock hopping and when it came time to come back he was reluctant as the waves had cut the rock off, and he might have had to get wet! Of course, whatever Hunter does, Beau has to do as well.

In the end Bruce and I had to pretend to walk off and leave them behind to get them to risk the knee deep water (their knee depth that is) to come with us.

The last time we were at Monkey Island the weather was pretty foul, and we had to tuck the motorhome up behind the sandbanks at the back of the beach to avoid being blown over in the wind. It was not the case this time, and we had a very pleasant stay.