Sharon’s Blog

It was a nice ride, if a bit damp and chlly to Ship Creek. First we crossed the longest single lane bridge (over the Haast River, I think) in New Zealand. Met up with a tour bus halfway across. He had stopped for us at one of the passing bays, but started driving forward before I could get into it! Was a bit nerve wracking, but I’m still here writing, so he obviously didn’t run me down. The ride from there the coastal plain – fern trees, flax, ferns, the occasional creek and lagoon, etc. Lots and lots of green. Every now and then we’d catch a brief glimpse of the ocean. We passed a fairly large lagoon on the left and approached Ship Creek. Everone hopped off their bikes for another little hike to the viewing platform. Jenny led the group out. As usual, I was in the rear taking pictures and Karsten was right ahead of me. He called everyone back at one point, where we met a fork in the trail. After leading everyone a ways down that path, he realized it was headed to the dune lake, and not the coastal viewpoint, so he, with great humor, admitted his error and turned everyone around. When we climbed the steps up through the ferns to the deck, we could finally get our first real look at the extensive beach and wild, grey, and violent Tasman sea pounding. You could still see the mountains there in the background, shrouded in clouds. The waves just pounded and pounded the coast – I suppose during a hurricane it’s worse than this, but this was about the roughest sea I’d ever seen.