14th October- Allanton to Papatowai

We woke up to incredible views of rolling green hills, dotted with sheep and cows, coloured with trees and bright yellow gorse, and sandwiched between pure white icey mountains and the flat blue sea.

We followed the country roads further, trying to get as high as we could. We didn't get as high as we would have liked but we got some fabulous views and used a fair bit of fuel trying.

We got ourselves onto the Southern Scenic Route road and weren't driving very long before we took a short detour to see Cannibal Bay. We didn't find out why it was called that but we did see some remnants of the huge masses of sea kelp that lurk by the shore, stranded on the beach. It's really fascinating-looking stuff and I had to resist a real urge to poke, squidge and play with its thick, juicy looking tubers.

We had barely started on our walk and were just admiring the ferocity of the waves when we noticed a huge sea-lion lolling by the cliff. It's dangerous to pass between them and the sea and inadvisable to go within 10m of one so since passing this chubster would have meant flouting both of these 'rules', we chickened out and went back to the van to make a nice hot coffee.

Next stop was the Catlin's Main town, Owaka, which boasts a hefty population of 395. We stopped at the tourist info to see if they had any information about walks. they weren't particularly helpful on that score but they did have a great museum, especially considering the size of the town. We enjoyed finding out about the local shipwrecks, industries and locality and I really enjoyed reading the projects about local people, done by school children. We nearly got a longer spell in there than we'd planned though because the guy had got halfway through bolting the doors when we got to the exit. He was just telling the other lady working there that we'd left as we turned the corner. This would have been particularly funny because he'd made a dry and possibly sarcastic joke about not getting locked in when I'd enquired about whether we had enough time to look around.

Though thinking about it, he may have done it on purpose. When I spoke to him the first time there was a large, black book on his desk that had 'Death Book' written on it, seemingly in Tippex. When we went back to pay for the museum, he had it open and was reading through the obituaries that had been cut out of the paper and glued in there.

We continued further, following the road around a sea inlet and aiming towards Jack's blowhole. We had to stop on the way to take a picture of a giant rainbow that arched completely over the road. It was the widest and thickest I think I've ever seen but the right side was already fading by the time I got out of the car.

We stopped on the edge of a windswept beach flanked by black and white cliffs and started the steep climb to Jack's Blowhole. The views were astounding as usual but as always, it was hard to capture the multitude of greens and the contrast of the high, green, sheep-dappled clifftops, with the blue sea far below and the slate-gray rocky outcrops. And there were loads of extremely cute, long-tailed, fluffy lambs frolicking about.

Now there are lots of things that I'd kind of forgotten about walking in a cold climate that came rushing back to me as we struggled against the wind, including that:

You never have enough tissues to cope with your continuously streaming and sore nose.

It's totally possible to be sweaty on some parts of your body whilst feeling the effects of near frostbite in others.

Cold-air somehow burns your lungs.

Driving rain can feel like someone is chucking needles in your face.

Despite all the discomfort, it's somehow invigorating.

We weren't quite sure what to expect from Jack's blowhole but it was a lot bigger and a lot less blowey than we'd imagined. Named after a frequently cussing Moari chief, it was 155m deep, 144m long, 68m wide and sat in the middle of a sheep-field just 200m from the sea. We stood on a ledge at the top and watched as the waves rushed under the natural arch and licked up the sheer sides of the hole in the land. It was easy to imagine that on a stormy day, the impact might shoot the spray upwards but today the sea there was fairly calm.

On the walk back, I was pretty distressed to see a dead sheep lying peacefully in the gully next to the path. It looked very recent and we hadn't noticed it on the way there so we stopped for a while and looked carefully to see if it was still breathing. Matt meanly refused to try and stand it back on its feet and insisted that I was satisfied with looking out for a farmer to tell. A few hundred metres further down we noticed a slightly lumpy sheep skin further up the slope that could only really have been a decomposing sheep and so had to conclude that the farmer was not likely to be anywhere close. Matt still refused to go back and make any attempts at resuscitation.

After a cold coffee (it turned out our 'new' flask is missing the seal), we took the gravelly road to Purakaunui Falls and had a quick wander to those before making our way to the Papatowai DoC camp site that the tourist info guy had told us about. We think it must have been recently created because it wasn't on our maps but we thought we'd give it a go because the old guy had told us that it had an 'ablutions area', a term I've only ever heard in French or in reference to mosques. I'm sure his odd choice of words for a wash-block, his lack of a full set of fingers (I don't like to mention them but I can't get the image of him 'pointing' out of my head) and his interest in death, all have a very righteous and worthy back-story that would put me to shame but they do add up to an irresistible character formation.

The ablutions block was gratefully received too. It was a rainy, cold evening and we were grateful for the sheltered area to cook and wash. In fact, the campsite was very nice and we had it all to ourselves again so thank you NZ Department of Conservation.