Nikau Palms on the Heaphy Track .....

..... hundreds and thousands of them! The plant life today was stunning. Some of the trees are ancient and huge - We saw a Southern Rata that was enormous around it's girth, plus kahikatea that towered over everything in sight. I've never seen such a display of nikau palms as we saw today - so beautiful. 
I've put a photo of the distant Heaphy River mouth into Extras - we only got a glimpse - it was our destination for the day.
We were rewarded by a beautiful West Coast sunset down on the beach at the end of our 3rd day. (see in Extras). The sandflies were fairly active, so we didn't hang around anywhere too long.

We often met up with the same folk in the huts and became friendly with a lovely German couple, who we shared a bunkroom with every night.
Someone asked if we carried all our gear - yes we did, including food.