Takaka Caves & Nelson Lakes National Park

The next morning we had our first fairly long driving day of the trip. We packed up and left the hostel and drove back towards Takaka.

On the way we stopped to do a two hour walk to the Rawhiti Cave. To access the walk we had to drive on a track across private farm land, which was fine....except that the road was blocked by cows. Rosie was driving so I had to get out and herd the cows the final 650m along the road. I was a bit scared at first, but luckily some other tourists drove in just behind us and a girl got out to help me with the herding. It was much easier with two.

Cow obstacle

Some were actually in the field still....

The walk to the cave was very steep but worth it. We rested a bit in the cool shade at the edge of the cave. Then we drove on to the Ngarua cave at the top of Takaka hill and just made it in time for the 1pm cave tour.

On the track to Rawhiti Cave

Ready for our second cave of the day

Moa bones in Ngarua Cave

Emerging back above ground

A real Moa we found!?

After the tour finished we were starving because we'd only had a few snacks since breakfast. We devoured the leftover sausage pasta in the cave car park. That lasted us until Motueka where we had to go to KFC before we could face going shopping.

The rest of the afternoon was spent driving to our campground at Nelson Lakes National Park. We arrived around 5pm and after putting up the tent in a swarm of sandflies we relaxed and walked along the lake a little bit.  I made the mistake of sitting down outside the showers to put my socks on and my feet were immediately covered in sandflies. We made vegetable pasta in the kitchen shelter around 8pm. One of our latest dinners of the trip. Usually we have been getting hungry at 5pm.

We spent the next day exploring around the lake. In the morning we took the loop walk returning along the Lakeshore. We added on a little extra to the trail and walked on to Rata Bay. Unfortunately Rosie got stung by one of the wasps en-route when it got trapped in her trousers. When we got to the bay we rested a while and made a cold compress from lake water and toilet roll. Rosie ate 2 cookies to assist in the wasp sting recovery.

Pre-wasp incident

Oh no! Get the cookies out!

We returned to the campsite for lunch and then walked from Kerr Bay to West Bay and back in the afternoon. We made Cantonese chicken and rice for dinner. This time we didn't make it much past 5pm and Rosie sustained another injury, burned tongue, from trying to eat it too fast.

That night in the tent we got woken up by a massive camper arriving at 11pm driving all around and shining headlights into the tent. We didn't sleep well after that and I had started to get a cold.