Day 50: Abel Tasman, Wanui Hut to Takaka

Even though we only hiked about 4 hours the previous day, we slept like rocks for almost 10 hours in Wanui hut.  In fact, we have been sleeping extraordinarily well in New Zealand.  Must be something in the air.

  We planned on hiking up the river, over the Wanui Saddle separating the River from the Downs, and then back to Takaka.

 KORU!

 Back in the Downs, in an area called Log City, for some reason.

 We've decided that sheep are adorable, and I want a pet lamb now.

 An example of a sink hole in the limestone.  The Downs have hundreds of these.  The fissures all lead to a stream bed outside of the downs

This one, in fact.  This is Gorge Creek.  After hiking around the Downs, we made a side trip to this over look and to Harwoods Hole.  More on the hole later.

 I was intrigued by the fractal nature of these rocks.  Millions of them form the mountain we were standing on, but each one was also weathered and looked like a tiny mountain itself.

It's hard to get a good concept of it from the pictures, but the last set are all of the entrance to Harwood's Hole.  It's a naturally occuring vertical shaft that's more than 550 feet deep.  Originally, it was the drainage point for all of the downs!  All the rain water had carved out this cavern, and would flow into it and out again through a small cave called Starlight Cave halfway down the mountain.  Now, the water has carved hundreds of smaller tunnels that exit the mountains even further down that.  Google images has some very impressive pictures of the inside, if you want to get the full experience. 

 Back around the other side of the Downs, for our return trip.

  These last two pictures were taken less than 100 feet from each other.  When you exit one sort of terrain and enter another around here, it's pretty abrupt. 

 

  She's a dork sometimes. 

We reached the end of the Rameka Track, and started down the dirt road for our last 10 km hike to Takaka, when a very nice woman, Miranda, stopped her car and asked if we needed a ride.  She is one of the few people who lives up at the top of the mountains, and figured we had already seen the nice parts by hiking.  The rest was just road walking, and as no one else was going that way, she figured she'd ask.  As with most parts of our journey, our policy is to just say yes.  So instead of a 2 hour walk, we were home in 20 minutes.  Quite nice, and we weren't exhausted before we went into town for a beer and fish and chips, which is becoming our post-camping meal of choice.

Another good camping trip done.  Now, what to do next?