Our final day of tramping over the Christmas holidays took us from the historical settlement of Port Craig, along the coast to our starting point in Te Waewae Bay. We woke to overcast skies, but even although there was a brief shower shortly after we started hiking, the dense forest kept us mostly protected.
After weaving through the dense bush for a while, we came out to the first of several beaches we would cross on our way back to the trail head. Despite being just a short distance from the sandy cove we had visited the night before, this beach was quite different, with rocks and pebbles. After just a short distance along the beach, we were back in dense forest.
Some time later the clouds started to lift which was good because as at this point the track left the forest and we made our way along a sandy beach. The high tide made for slow progress over the soft sand but eventually we spotted the marker that indicated that the track was heading back into the forest.
The track met back up with the path that we had followed on our first day and so we were able to make good time through the forest, the promise of a tasty late lunch at a nearby cafe making us quicker than usual.
We made it back to the car, happy to have finished another track and to have managed another walk in Fiordland in the relative dry. We changed into clean clothes before heading off in search of a cute little beach side cafe that we had seen recommended for lunch.
Our drive home took us along the southern coast of the South Island and we made a quick stop at one of the viewpoints to take in the full sweep of Te Waewae Bay and the Hump Ridge in the distance. From this distance the climb up to the top of the Hump Ridge didn’t look nearly as impressive as it had felt when we made our way up there!