Anatori

Hubs, Yola and I left the Bach and headed further along the West Coast to Anatori for a night of freedom camping just up off the beach. You can see Stan the Van as the wee white dot in the distance! The West coast has felt quite different to the sunny sheltered climate of Golden Bay. It was wild and windy with a mighty ocean pounding away al night - I liked it, but Yola went to bed with her ipod plugged in preferring a go at Tinker Tailor Solider Spy on audio....she fell asleep before the end of the first chapter!
We walked along the beach on a fairly grey day and were sand blasted regularly during our bimble...ouch. The hoodies went up, scarves across faces, sunglasses on and there was nothing we do about the bare legs. Mind that tan, it's taken ages to get a bit of colour on my pins!!
We walked to Lake Otatuwi, through cow fields, sand dunes, following a beer coloured river snaking its way through huge flax plants to the mouth of the lake. The ford crossing looked too deep and too revolting to attempt (several inches if thick floating cow poo on either side of poo coloured water ....nah thanks) so we took the long way round via the other advised route, which turned out to be a bridge with a sign advising it unsafe and to go via the ford! we took the bridge which was fine... in hindsight, but it was a long old scramble to get there.
On our return we went for the ford option.....yuk. with my trousers off and round my neck, holding my shoes one in each hand (camera was in Hubs care, I figure I was more likely to end up on my bum in the river than him) I went for it and slithered my way across slimy stones in poo ridden current and made it safely across.....then I could laugh.
Thanks to Rob and Primal for the shower when we got to theirs! What a warm welcome for 2 poo ridden travellers. (The baby wipes awaited me in Stan, so it wasn't so bad really).
Yola went the long way round.