Moving right along from a place haunted to all hell, we go for a change of scenery and stop in to visit to local resident Maia, our friend Jinty’s old Botany professor. Her home is a converted school and grounds which host the most gorgeous collection of green things growing that I might have ever seen. This isn’t her #1 garden either, that’s a walk in the woods away.
(We’re looking for Peripatus, or velvet worms in case you were wondering)
From here we ambled up to the lookout over Karitane and Waikouaiti beaches, where a chill wind was blowing…not encouraged to hang around too long, the crew huddled around, took in another cute animal encounter (a tiny foal covered in fuzz) and sped down to Huriwa peninsula.
I won’t go into too much Huriwa detail – it’s all there in one of our earlier posts, Pa Wars - but a walk out on this brave, battered piece of coast with loops and arches is a must if you’re down near Karitane.
From here it’s north onto Waikouaiti, via a quick trip to Cherry Farm (where Seacliff Mental Hospital patients were relocated in the 1950s) for fish and chips in the last rays of sun.
Waikouaiti began as a whaling station which was bought in 1838 by Johnny Jones, a whaler from Aussie. He was apparently built like a brick house with a terrible temper and is rumoured to have unintentionally killed one of his sons by hitting him too hard with a piece of lumber. There – I did it – a piece of tragic history for this post just in time.
