Alright, we’re settling back into the familiar rhythm of sitting around not doing a whole lot, but still being too lazy to write a blog post. Truly, this is my sweet spot.

Picking up where we left off, I fled my surfing failure in Westport and spent a couple of nights in the tiny town (more of an intersection, really, I say with nothing but love in my heart) of Karamea, farther north up the coast, on the west side of Kahurangi National Park. The hotel/bar/gathering place in town lets you park your van for the night for $7.00, which, considering you get access to a clean bathroom and a complimentary, unlimited hot shower, is a steal. I had a nice lazy day filled with flat whites, meat pies, and reading, and got ready for a nice hike the next day.

The plan was to check out the Fenian cave loop, then walk the Oparara Valley track up to the Oparara and Moria arches. The walk to the caves was quick and easy, and the caves themselves were pretty neat. I had them almost entirely to myself, and spent a while stooping and scrambling into every crevice I could find. I turned off my headlamp at points to soak in the total darkness, keeping eyes open to feel them straining and straining and failing to pick up a single stray photon. Then closing them, opening them, and truly not being able to tell the difference. A cool feeling! I also stumbled across some more glow worms, which are always delightful.

After the caves I headed north on the Oparara Valley track. This section was a couple of hours of bliss, just a lovely mostly flat walk through gorgeous, deep green forest full of mosses and ferns, where I didn’t cross a single soul.

After a leisurely lunch at the trailhead on the Oparara side I set off to see what there was to see. It turns out the attraction there are the huge limestone arches over the Oparara river, and they are in fact stunning. I spent a while scrambling around the rocks, going up and down the river, getting different views of the arch, and eventually met a group of friendly Kiwis who offered to give me a ride back to my car. So instead of a 4 hour walk back I had a nice swim with them and drove over to check out another cave, which turned out to be the coolest one! It was much larger than the Fenian ones and had one passage in particular that you could explore quite deep. There were signs at the entrance talking about cave spiders, but I was skeptical we’d see any, since the signs said they were reclusive. But lo and behold, keeping an eye out paid dividends, and after I spotted the first one the floodgates opened and we must have ended up coming across 5 or 6. They were definitely pretty creepy! Quite large, lit up in the strange light of our headlamps, invariably staying completely still and often with bright bubbles of condensation on their legs and bodies. I really wish I had some pictures to upload here and creep everyone out, but I was tired at the end of the day and figured this would be a short scramble with nothing worth photographing. Lesson learned!

The next day I went back down to Westport, determined to give surfing another try. Lo and behold, I went out three more times and had a blast! I went to a different spot which is a bay where there’s a perfect riptide that goes up one side, so all you have to do is go over there and it pushes you out to the break. You don’t even have to paddle! My kind of surfing… I had fun playing around with the board I rented, which was shorter than what I’ve used in the past, and even managed to just start getting a little bit of the feeling of how to make quick turns.

So that’s where we’re at. Yesterday I made it down to the (relatively) large metropolis of Greymouth, and today I’m headed for a free camp near Whataroa, where I’ll be close to the hikes I want to do the next few days. I’ll close with a collection of miscellaneous local flavor and a selfie so you know I’m still alive and still ruggedly handsome. Also, I’m going to start including links to google photos albums where you can see the videos I took for the relevant post, since I’d have to pay to upload videos to this site, and I’m not about that life. They’re not necessarily good, but as with everything else on here, enter at the risk of your own boredom. Here are the videos for this post.