A beach walk, a bush walk

Gentle Annie offers miles of options

This kiwi campground is remarkable in many ways, not least because the the entire store/check-in area is on the honor system and open 24/7, so you can go in and take an ice cream or a meat pie or pizza makings and pay the next day. Or just sit and use the wif-fi.

Here I’m using the outdoor cooking area to make a vegetable stir fry (pizza oven at left). Art is off camera grilling steaks. In addition to the multitude of spaces, Gentle Annie has a whole new shower area and I can attest to its brilliant design. Perfectly private yet plein air.

This outdoor laundry is also a part of an updated, effective design.

Clean-up in the outdoor kitchen. It’s been close to 70F and sunny here for several days.

A fellow camper several stops back was talking about something she called “the administration of being on the road.” A perfect descriptor. There are still dishes to do, laundry to wash (today hung in the sun to dry), showers to take, and food shopping periodically to stock up for more remote locations.

How do the currents work to deposit rocks in an enormous pile in one spot and then wood separately?

Today we’ll head back through Westport to shop for two weeks worth of food and then on to Charleston. Gentle Annie is in the wee settlement of Mokihinui, just south of Karamea. S-l-o-w travel is our motto.

A woman who runs the camp here told us you could walk for five hours heading north on this beach.

Yesterday we took the bush walk, a deeper shade of green…