Day 7 Shakespeare Cliff

So I pay have taken a lot of photos today, that’s only because I ended up doing a lot more than planned, I walked to Buffalo Beach, crossed to ‘Ferry Landing’, Walked to Front Beach, Flaxmill Beach, up to Shakespeare Cliff, then down to Lonely Bay, onto Cook’s Bay and finally hiked up to Whitianga Rock!

Turtle Cove (the hostel I’m staying at right now) offers breakfast, just the usual cornflakes and toast, but there’s just something nice about getting a surprise free breakfast!  So after breakfast I headed to Lyon’s Park and walked along the marina up to Buffalo Beach 

 The Marina

 Walking along Buffalo Beach in the Morning was so pretty!

It was pretty early but there were lots of older ladies wandering around (apparently they walk along the beach every morning as their daily exercise in groups)

This sign made me laugh though!

After pottering about on the beach I caught the ferry (which lasted a grand total of 40seconds) and from there head up the road

This was the only shop at Ferry Landing!

I pottered along to Front Beach and over to Flaxmill Bay before I attempted the Cliff Trek

 Such a pretty walk!

Although these signs weren't fun to see!

Getting up to the top was pretty steep but it was incredibly well signposted for NZ – as in there were actually 3 signs along the 2hr path!

 Lots of photos of me!

After having lunch with this amazing view I headed down to Lonely Bay. This area (despite it’s name) is usually packed but since it’s off season I had the place to myself to wander about

Another hour and crossing a stream I got to Cooks bay, but by the time I got there the weather was turning, so I had to take shelter under a tree (hiding under trees is becoming something I’ve been doing too often at the moment!)

 It really was as grey as this picture looks!

On the way back to the Ferry I decided I might as well do the walk up to Whitianga Rock since I had time, the weather was holding again and with the luck I’ve been having I didn’t want to hold off doing the walk until tomorrow

 I'm pretty sure this is a Kingfisher? Maybe?

The walk was… interesting. I should have known, it started off by going through private land and that’s never a good sign if the DOC don’t opt to buy the entire path.

It was doing pretty smoothly, a few muddy slopes but nothing major, that was until I got further up and got to some weirdly cut stone stairs – which wouldn’t have been too bad but they were full of slippery wet leaves.

But that was OK but then I had to walk along a bit that was around 20cm wide with a steep drop on both sides… that wasn’t fun in the rain.

Oh and there was a blown down tree

Roughly every half an hour you find one of these little plastic triangles on a tree or on the floor, and it's so reassuring as then you know you're actually on the right path and haven't wandered off!

The run really started when I got to this. It looked like the path had just ended but then I saw there was something that looked like foot holes in the rock… so obviously I climbed up!

The view was incredible!

And I finished off the day with a spiced apple muffin! Not a bad day!