South Coast Fiordland - Day 3

I had shown my interest in paua hunting. Something I have never done before and am keen to learn about here. So in the morning the boys promised to take us out in the tide pools.

Usually you need to dive for paua, but some places like this you can find them just in the rocks amongst the tide pools. But you have to time it at low tide. It began with a promising start and we were quite a posse with the dogs. But the tide began coming in no sooner than we had gotten out, and I nearly broke my toes slipping on a rock. I have the wounds to prove it to.

So no paua. Instead, the sandflies descended on us in mass. The sun became obscured in cloud. And as soon as we bid adieu and set off hiking, the trail turned rough and the sky opened up. It was a tough, long, and very wet hike that day bushwhacking our way to the Waitutu River many kilometers further west. When we weren't watching our footing on the root tangled, muddy ground we looked up to towering native rimu and rata trees soaring overhead. Rare, southern kaka's, a native parrot flew overhead in a machine-gun barrage of noise. And the forest got darker, wetter and wilder as we went.

But the treasure at the end of the trail was surely our beautiful hunter's hut. Clean, cozy, and dry with ample bundles of wood to keep the wood stove roaring.