Three-Mile Lagoon Walk at Okarito
Monday 5 October
Weather forecast has got cloudier overnight so we pottered in the morning, giving the sun a chance to break through.
Didn’t look hopeful, so we packed a picnic and set off to walk along the beach to Three-Mile Lagoon as low tide was approaching. Left the camp at around 11ish and promptly spotted a sign for Russell Street - was Louis’ dad named after the street? Was the street named after Louis’ dad? Or is it all a coincidence?!?
It was just over 4km along the beach, on sand & flat pebbles, past waterfalls, cliff slides, huge rocks and under constant birdsong - mostly tui & korimako. There were some very fragile bits of cliff and although we were 2 hours from low tide, the waves were still coming in pretty close. Judging by the footprints in the sand we were not the only ones headed out this way - hope they didn't get caught by the tide! Some of the rocks that had tumbled down to the beach were enormous and definitely deadly. The rocks along the beach were fascinating - in the triptych above, the two on the left sat carefully balanced above the beach, the top right one had dark marks that almost looked like script or runes along the divide between dark & light rock and the bottom right one was split apart by around 20cm in a clean cut
As we left Ōkārito, the beach got narrower and rockier with lots of sea spray; at one point we watched the waves, then skedaddled round this large rock in the pic below… three waves later our footprints got washed out! It’s all about timing!
Further along, we heard a rustling noise in the rocks and worried it was another rockfall, but then a seal slithered out of its hiding place, hurtled across the sand and into the sea to escape us scary humans! 🦭 I just managed to grab my camera and catch a few shots as it whizzed past and out to sea...
Near the start of the lagoon, the path became a scramble up a rocky gully then up over the headland to a fabulous view of Three-Mile Lagoon and the beach heading on South to Five-Mile Beach which was a big gold mining area back in the day. Climbing up to the track was quite a mission as the gully you needed to scramble up was steep, muddy & slippery. Luckily we found a few good rocky hand & footholds on either side of the muddy section and clambered up - despite my dodgy knees.
A few hundred metres up the path, views opened up to the south over the beach & the lagoon, towards Five-Mile Beach - and a bridge to nowhere! Hard to imagine this whole area was a big gold mining centre around 150 years ago!
We came down to the big swing bridge, crossed it and the path ran out… tbh the bridge didn’t even reach the shore, Louis had to take a bit of a leap! We sat here on the steps and ate our picnic then headed back. Love the pattern on the wooden bridge where the old chicken wire has left a rusty imprint which is unaligned with the new silver chicken wire!
After our picnic there, we set off along the old Pack Track back to Ōkārito. The Pack Track wound up to around 100-120m above sea level and followed the contours for a large part. The trees around us were filled with birds - mainly tuis and korimako. Impossible to catch most of them as they were deep in the bush, but a wee toutouwai, robin, just watched us as we passed then hopped off and flew into the bush.
The track was upsy downsy, rising to 120m at points before finally dropping back to the marshlands behind the township. I stomped along with my Spider-Man knees and trusty walking pole - stopping for breath and to try and locate the source of the birdsong on my Merlin app. The birdsong all along the track was phenomenal and we even got dive bombed by several pairs of tuis! A few metres off the path before we dropped down to sea level, we spotted this teal sign in the bush - a tribute to Kevin Smith, West Coast environmentalist & advocate. Finally we reached the boardwalk back across the wetlands… nearly home!
It was around 9.4 km to complete the loop and we settled into Banjo for a siesta before hitting the very decent $2 camp showers.🚿
Over at the shelter, the Custodian’s granddaughter had adopted a baby bunny, rescued from certain Kahu death out on the airstrip. We saw mum out there the night before and thought we were seeing things, not many feral rabbits are jet black… must be a pet gone wild as the local rabbits are not usually this colour or this cute! 🖤
Burgers 🍔 for dinner in Banjo while being regaled by the 40 greatest hits of 1985 on YouTube… I had a good Banjo boogie at some of the old bangers! 🎶💃. Unlike us, Dave Byrne was on a road to nowhere… we are always going somewhere, we just may not always know where until we get there!
Popped out to catch the dying rays of the sun then worked on Banjo posts until bedtime. 🥱 Sadly missed notification of an Aurora (again) and it was all gone by the time I checked the southern skies. Will check actively on future nights!
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