Day 7, Vanlife, an adventurous day

On our return to the river mouth and the jumper leads which we didn't need, there was a little wee van stuck in the sand so we did a bit of a rescue and got the young fella unstuck and on his way. Lucky for him as the tide was coming in rapidly and he would have been going under!

Finally we got away from Anatori and made our way to Mangarakau and Snake Creek Road. A local had told us about a good swimming hole up the Paturau River so we decided to go explore. We wandered off up the track for about 3km to a large,  dilapidated bridge only to find the most recent floods had damaged the access to the waterhole and we couldn't get to it! Oh well, it was a lovely walk through some beautiful rata trees and native bush that felt a bit like dinosaurs would pop out and visit at any moment. It was super humid though so we stopped at the local Cafe for a smoothie and an iced chocolate. My iced chocolate had a huge scoop of vanilla ice cream in it - perfect!

Then it was round the Whanganui Inlet and back into Golden Bay. By that stage it was after 4pm and we needed power to ensure the van battery is fully recharged so rather than head up to Wharariki we did the short trip back to the Collingwood campground. So here we are, washing done, dinner eaten and another glorious evening by the water.