Driving down from the mountains to the coast this morning, we saw that the rivers all looked quite swollen after last nights rain, but we had no idea how bad it had been in nearby regions. Just north of us there was flash flooding overnight leading to ten deaths. Completely oblivious, we checked into our hotel and then set off on the last day of our walking tour, down the coast South towards the Spanish border. It become clear pretty quickly that the sea was a little wilder than usual.
The coastal path was closed from 100 metres of our hotel (took us a while to notice).
However the weather had cleared up by then and we had a very pleasant couple of hours meandering our way to the next town, where we had lunch.
It was obvious by now that we weren’t going to make the entire distance in time for our taxi, so we organized a pick up from a nearer beach. The next part of our walk became increasingly fraught, however.
Walking through the port and out to the lighthouse along a windswept peninsula was quite hard work, and as the time of our rendezvous with the taxi got closer, we started to get anxious about the distance we still had to cover. Then the track got rougher and more precarious, as we scrambled over rocks and narrow gravely paths high above rocky beaches with pounding surf.
At that point I remembered I suffered from terrible vertigo and the path started lurching sideways, trying tip me over into the abyss. Luckily my caring friends were able to look after me and also record my anguish for posterity on their phones.
(Note correct footwear, Kirsten)
Then the wind started getting up and it started to rain. By now we had no idea how far we were from our meeting point, and the meet up time had arrived, so I had to phone the poor taxi driver and try to explain our situation (phone battery now on 20%). Where were we, he asked, and how far away? I had no idea, except to say I thought about 15 minutes away. Then we got a phone call from the tour operator saying don’t go any further, the beach was inaccessible due to the storm and big surf, and at that point we saw our taxi driver waving to us from across the vineyards. I thought he’d be cross that we were so late, but no, he was really worried about us, and had driven cross country to catch us before we plunged headlong into the sea. We were so pleased to see him! Then followed the usual NZ related conversation, although a different variation as it was unrelated to the All Blacks – he had actually been to NZ and had done the Taupo Iron Man a few years ago. Early dinner and then bed. Looking forward to some unexciting days not filled with adventure over the next wee while.