Rabbit Island and Real Fruit Ice Cream

Sunday 4 January

A glorious sunny day in our quiet wee POP - we had a chill morning then hopped on the bikes around 11ish and cycled down to Mapua again, this time with swim togs and a picnic.

We chained up the bikes and hopped onto the boxy little Mapua Ferry for the 5 minute crossing of the estuary to Rabbit Island at high tide. We should have brought our bikes, everyone else did - but we hadn’t done our research!

Walked along the forest tracks and then down along the beach. The first thing we came across as we left the ferry was this curious solar smart bench which harnessed the sun to create a charging point for mobile phones and offered wifi for those staying on the island - there was certainly no shortage of solar today! We cut down to the beach along a pathway through the dunes and the bunny tails; there were quite a few sea birds nesting or hanging out on the beach so we made a few detours to avoid oyster catchers and cormorants, and survived a few herring gull dive bombings!

There was so much fabulous driftwood along the way and previous passers-by had created some lovely "house at Pooh Corner" structures which were pretty cool.

The sea and sky were spectacularly beautiful and the water was quite warm - but sadly the onshore wind discouraged us from taking a dip, but we sat on driftwood logs and ate our picnic, luxuriating in the beauty of the place.

We walked a little further along the shore until we found another pathway back through the dunes to the cycle trail through the forest, and followed that back to the boat ramp in time for the 2.10 ferry; there was quite a queue for this crossing but the ferry held more than you might think.

Back on the ferry, the tide was going out and rushing down the estuary - fascinating watching the ferry captain set a course almost straight upstream to cross to the other side - aiming for a buoy way upstream about 2/3 of the way across then letting the boat do a powered drift into the riverbank mostly through the will of the current!

After all our walking and picnicking we felt we’d earned a real fruit ice cream so queued up at Hamish’s. Strawberry for Louis and raspberry/boysenberry for me - yum!

Puffed and panted back up the hill to the POP - and had a lovely chat with our neighbouring family & Billy the dog, who were about to leave and head back to real life in Nelson.

BBQ lamb chops for dinner then a stroll round the POP grounds as golden hour set in.

What a wonderful day! 🤩