Putangirua Pinnacles

Way back when, Ann and I got rained out of our trip to Pinnacles, and instead drank wine in Martinborough. This time, Stuart, Nick, and I succeeded. Turns out it's fantastic. It was a beautiful day, sunny and warm, and the ocean colors were great. In fact, the whole southeast corner of the North Island is quite gorgeous. I didn't even realize we had this great part of the country so close (1.5 hours, roughly). Anyway, we did the fairly rough hike to, and scramble through, the Pinnacles, and then, instead of going to Martinborough, we headed to Lake Ferry for a beer at the pub--which has a nice seafood menu. Great way to spend a day, if you're ever here. There are lots of beaches nearby (on the road...the only road), with some of New Zealand's best surfing, if that's your thing.

We also got lost several times. First of all, we somehow missed the turnoff for the Pinnacles (tip: it's before the fishing town of Ngawi--the one with all the tractors pulling the fishing boats out of the water). So we drove up and down the coast, clearly lost, and even headed up a ridiculously unsafe goat path of a "road." The virtue of this is that you get to see lots of beaches. Then, on the Pinnacles themselves, we headed up between a couple of fins, thinking we were on the right path. We weren't. We still don't know where the trail actually goes. But we had a good time.