NZ - Gentle Annie

Once the bad weather had cleared, we reverted to our itinerary and set up camp in Gentle Annie, a site next to the beach that we'd been looking forward to visiting. We enjoyed some great local walks. A highlight was the Charming Creek walkway which took us along a disused railway track which was built in the 1900s to carry timber and coal through the Ngakawau gorge and alongside the Mangatini Falls.

We also travelled slightly further north to the limestone wonder Oparara Arch and the nearby Crazy Paving and Box Canyon Caves.

Gentle Annie campsite was super chilled, super cheap, boasted a wood-fired pizza oven and was in an amazing beach location. The beach was covered in driftwood where more creative people than us built sculptures. Local wildlife included the weka (wild bush hen) who would happily break into the tent (or car) to scavenge food, friendly ducks, and rather less friendly blood sucking sandflies.

We packed up our (very damp) camping gear and headed to our next location. A quick look at our itinerary revealed we actually weren't due to leave the campsite until the following day. Whoops! We continued south visiting in the Hokitika gorge and its milky waters, and found a super comfy converted storage container next to the beach in Ross for the night.