April 8, 2016
Today we were on a mission to find access to Pelorus Sound’s most famous walking track: the Nydia Track. It starts at the head of Te Mako Bay (just south of our Ngawhakawhiti Bay) and goes for 27km to finish in Mahau Sound. According to our guidebook, there’s an access path to it here, near the southeast end of the bay. We had only a crude drawing from the book for reference, but I didn’t anticipate having trouble finding it and hadn’t done further research on it’s location.
It seems I was wrong to assume the access path would be easy to find. After combing the shoreline in our dinghy, we saw no sign of a track anywhere in the area. We thought we’d found a possibility at one point. There was a path through dried grass that was currently underwater. Could it be a walking path at low tide? We made our way up it in the dinghy, using our oars when it got too shallow for the outboard engine.
After pulling ourselves through tree branches that hung down to the water, we found ourselves in a beautiful spot with pool and waterfall. When I thought it was shallow enough I jumped out to walk the dinghy further in and ended up in water to my waist. Still, I pulled the dinghy into the pool area, then walked over mossy, slippery rocks to the other side to look for a path while Rich waited for me. No luck. (Below a gallery of photos from our search. Click to enlarge and scroll.)
At this point, we gave up on finding the elusive path to the track. We theorized that there used to be one but it’s since grown over. It was a bit disappointing not to find the path, but in looking for it we’d had the bonus of discovering the hidden pool and waterfall.
After returning to our boat, we thought it might be nice to return to the pretty little anchorage on the east side for the night; so we picked up and moved. After setting the anchor, we sat outside to enjoy some lunch. Indeed this was a nice spot. Unfortunately, all the insects in Ngawhakawhiti Bay seemed to agree and came to join us for lunch (and for the bitey ones, we were on the menu). We sprayed and swatted and stuck with finishing our lunch, but when Rich noticed we’d drug anchor a bit, that was the last straw. Soon, we were headed back to the south side. It turned out to be a good choice–we ended up having a very comfortable night there. –Cyndi
