Day 3 - Riverton to Colac Bay, 14km, 4 hours 40 minutes

I started the day having a leisurely breakfast, chatting with a fascinating couple who were sharing the backpackers with me.
They'd had a custom 4 person recumbent tandem built for them, and used it to tour the South Island. We chatted about this a fair bit, got into their tramps down on Stewart island, and some epic sea kayaking adventures around the Marlborough Sounds. Pretty cool, but whole other level given that the guy is totally blind. An inspiring couple it was a pleasure to spend time with.


Somehow we got onto the topic of skinny dipping. I brought out my best tale in this respect - swimming with Karen for 30 minutes at the base of the Maruia falls (I know, I know; it's dangerous - we were young, stupid, and a lot skinnier back then!). In any case we had a great time having the river to ourselves for such a long time... until we eventually realised there was a viewing platform at the top of the falls, with a bus load of tourists on it!
My new friends promptly trumped this story with an even better one. They were skinny dipping down on Stewart island and had hopped out to dry off, when they were surprised by an angry bull seal who came steaming out of the water then promptly settled down on their discarded clothing, and would not be moved. An already dire situation deteriorated further when a tourist launch pulled up at their little beach. Truly a tale even Crumpy would have been proud of!

In any case, back to the walking.
I had a nasty shock in the morning while examining my foot taping, to discover a 10 cent sized blister on my left heel.


Managing my feet was always going to be one of the most challenging aspects of this adventure, but it was quite perturbing to have such a nasty blister so early. In fact after 80km of very hot road and beach walking, my feet were in a bit of a sorry state, with a bruise forming under the heel of my right foot too.

In any case, with some careful plastering and taping, the heel blister didn't bother me unduly throughout the day, although the bruise became worse.

The walking started with a mostly easy climb of 200m up to and through Mores reserve. This is another heavily trapped and consequently stunning reserve on the outskirts of Riverton, with views over much of my trail for the past couple of days and bird life rarely seen on the mainland. Having only a lazy 14km to do on the day, I took time out to enjoy the view before carrying on.

The path down to Colac Bay was exceedingly overgrown with hen Fern and gorse, though fortunately recently thwacked.
It was on my way down here that I bumped into my first SOBO. We spent 5 minutes chatting, with lots of good tips exchanged about the upcoming track. I was told to be careful of electric fences strong enough to bring down a horse, and put in the know about a recently opened section of track that will benefit me in a few days, along with a warning about a lack of water throughout pretty much the rest of Southland.

Continuing on, I dropped down to some truly spectacular coastline, with never ending sets of huge southern ocean breakers rolling into the shore. Truly a surfers paradise!



I carried on up and over numerous headlands, with a bit of basic route finding over the cliffs to spice up an already interesting route. Some of the headlands required pushing through thick flax thickets, a difficult job resulting in a couple of tumbles, my feet not being visible.


In one bay there was a fascinating meter square cave, with breakers literally blowing through it to wash up at my feet. It made for some great video.

Eventually I dropped down to the Colac Bay beach, surely one of the best surf beaches in the country.



I'm going to hang around here tomorrow to enjoy the surf, my last view of the sea for awhile, and to allow my sorry feet to recover somewhat.

PostScript for the day. It's 11pm. There's a very drunk, obnoxious guy outside my room asking his wife to roll a smoke for him, coz he's too far gone to do it. His wife is refusing. His mates are trying to convince him to go to bed, doing the right thing by everyone else in the camp.
Mate: Markus, go to bed.
Markus: (unintelligible) whoop, rrrrrrrrr
Mate: Markus, you have a beautiful woman in there, go have sex with her.
Markus: I'm too drunk to get it up.
Mate: Sorry mate, I can't help you with that.
Markus: Why not?

Stay classy Markus!