24 degrees, cloudy am, sunny pm
Meant to say that yesterday John’s medication arrived, thank goodness. Getting a bit worried. It had been opened and inspected by a doctor which was probably the cause of the delay. Thankfully John had left the tablets in the original boxes with the prescription details on rather than taking them out to make a smaller package. Not sure they would have arrived that way.
A lazy start this morning as Clare couldn’t get out of bed, jet lag finally caught up. Once we were moving we decided to stay local and take a walk to Cooks Bay, the original landing spot for Captain Cook. We took the small ferry across the 100m gap of the harbour inlet and then decided to take the scenic route to the bay rather than follow the road round the coast. Whatta mistaka to maka!
First we climbed up to Whitianga Rock to overlook the harbour and bay on the other side then headed back down to follow the ‘path’ to Cooks Bay which included climbing over tree roots and rocks, scrambling under overhanging rocks on the slippery foreshore of the bay (luckily the tide was going out) and then 20 minutes straight up a narrow, winding path much like the hillside at Chatelus only at least twice as steep and twice as long. It was very humid amongst the trees and ferns too. Eventually we reached a recently installed lookout point with fabulous views over Whitianga and the surrounding area but with no seats to resting our trembling limbs!
Partially recovered we wandered down the hill which was a proper stepped path thankfully and luckily found a lovely cafe for a bite to eat. Then on to Cooks Bay, a huge sandy bay which we walked the length of to find some marker to say where Cook had landed, but to no avail. There was no X to mark the spot.
We took the road route back to the Ferry and stopped at the first bar we found for some refreshment. Fitbit says we walked 8 miles and climbed the equivalent of 60 floors which would be fine if that was spread out the whole day, but the floors were completed in about 20 minutes!