riverECHO

Tonight, we watched one of the most amazing sunsets we’ve seen since we’ve been here. We’ve been listening to the waves crash and rumble from our house over the last couple days and couldn’t tell if we just thought they sounded louder or if in fact they were louder. When we reached the beach, we agreed that they were definitely bigger, starting to crash way off shore when they normally crash right as they reach the rocks. The sun glowed brilliant orange through a strange haze in the sky. Not a single cloud but the waves reflected bright pink and the off shore breeze created a band of sea spray that rolled off the wave and into the sun. It was spectacular.

In between way to many hours staring at our laptops this week we were able to venture out a few times. The Pancake Rocks and Blowholes are the main attraction in Punakaiki and usually the only piece of the town that anyone exploring New Zealand will ever see. A 10 minute walk leads you down to a series of layered rocks, which sort of look like stacked pancakes. The rock has been carved out by the ocean in a way that at high tide, and especially when there is a big swell, sea water crashes under the rock and shoots water and spray high into the air through a number of large holes. We scheduled this outing for a time when high tide was happening right around sunset.

Our most entertaining moments of the week:

Yesterday, during another sunset outing, we drove a little north to the next series of beaches. We walked as far as we could, peaking in little caves and watching the big yellow ball drop over the ocean. On the way back, we had to jump back across a tiny stream coming out from the forest and carving a little canyon in the sand until it flowed into the ocean. It was about as wide as I could jump, so when we crossed it on the way in we had no problem. On the way back, we crossed it a little up “river” where the rocks were more pebble than sand size. I got a running start and leapt out over the running water. As my right foot came down on the other side it instantly sank a couple feet and my momentum carried the rest of my body flat on my face. No injuries, just a very wet foot, a very sandy everything else, and plenty of laughs.

Another exciting moment in our quite life on the beach occurred in the middle of the night. We were both sound asleep and woke to a strange sound that we initially thought was our electric blanket (yes, it’s friggin’ cold here) shorting out. We quickly figured out that the noise was coming from outside and upon further investigation found a possum perched in a branch just outside our window. He was staring straight at us and hissing, if you could call it a hiss. Like I said we thought it was something electrical shorting out. We closed the curtains but he persisted. It was either frequent enough that it became a sort of white noise or we decided we just didn’t care, because we fell back asleep shortly thereafter. It’s the scariest creature we’ve encountered in New Zealand thus far, which overall and compared to what we’ve been reading about Australia, ain’t too bad.