Today we woke up to rain. It wasn’t heavy, just enough to know it was damp outside. We decided not to make coffee in the van and instead headed for a cafe so I could get a video uploaded. The coffee was nice too.

After that we headed off, driving south. It was quite a dramatic scenery drive today. The mountains were covered in mist and it felt really moody.

We turned off before Haast abd detoured down to Jackson bay, leaving all the tourists behind. It was an incredible drive and we barely saw another. It felt like we were driving in the Daintree forest with the lush trees either side of the road. 

And then we went over a long one lane bridge over the brilliant turquoise water of the river. After that it was the most magnificent drive along a narrow coastal road. It was a wild west coast day with waves crashing almost over the road. At the end we found all the campervans (ok, about 6 of them) but they were all in the restaurant at the end universe (well the end of the road, but could have been the universe). The restaurant is called the Craypot, and it looked really yummy, but they had a waiting list so we decided not to.

It was absolutely pissing it down with rain so we didn’t stay long. I would have liked to have taken a walk along the pier, but being such a wild and windy day, we headed back. There was a nice freedom camping spot I had eyed at on the way up.

We arrived at the spot and pulled in and were the only ones there. It had a gorgeous outlook over the inlet and we couldn’t believe our luck finding such a perfect spot. But when we got out of the car we were attacked. Sandflies came at us, ready to eat us for dinner. We decided this wasn’t such a great spot after all, and headed into Haast.

We stopped at a lodge which had camping for campervans. We were right opposite the kitchen and lounge and it was set up like a backpackers, with a great kitchen and loads of lounging chairs. We had much needed showers as we were minging, and also got our laundry done. We are also on a powered site so we were able to use our new heater.