March 19th; Sea Arches and Cooks Cove

Log

Date: March 19th

Weather: Sunny

Swell: small E

Wind: Moderate SE

Distance: 17 NM

Camp: Cooks Cove

Back Country Cuisine Food Review

www.backcountrycuisine.co.nz

Meal: Mexican Chicken, Apricot Crumble

Impression: second time round. Awesome meal, lots of flavor, great mild spice, comes with corn chips, love it, certainly a favorite. You could cook a cup of rice to go with it and make it a huge tasty meal for big appetites.

Love the Apricot crumble by back country. Large Apricot halves in a gooey sauce, sprinkle on crumble topping, makes a yummy treat at the end of the night. We added extra Chocolate Toffee Pop Cookies for our insatiable sweet tooth appetites.

Stars: Mexican Chicken 9 out of 10, Apricot Crumble 9 out of 10

Blog

Woke at 7.30 pm, packed bags then sat and ate a great egg breaky with Peter and Carolyn on the front deck of the Te Puka Tavern, looking out across the beautiful Bay and the far point we will paddle around and beyond.

Cleaned our room that we so graciously had been given and lugged the kayaks down too the boat ramp to load. Got all the gears ready and loaded, as everyone one came down to see us off. Merl, the Guitar Minstral that keep the funky beats going for us last night came to see us off along with, Greg, Chris, Nick and some new faces for us.

We slid off the boat ramp after hugs good bye, and invites to return and do the presentation on our trip here. I really hope we can get back here at the end visit again, everyone is so great and the area so beautiful. We paddled out into a building head wind from the SE with our bodies feeling good after a days rest and willing to push into it. We have been so spoilt for weather over the last 9 days that today was quite a new challenge and a nice change.

We slogged across two bays through choppy water, stopping behind a striking white stratified headland to eat lunch at about 2 pm. At the end f the second big bay, Tolega Bay, we came across some amazing sea arch formations that we played about in and got some stunning shots off. They are some of the coolest coastal architecture I have seen on the trip so far, and the lighting was amazing!

Dave then found an awesome little cove, Cooks cove, for us to camp in. it has a small entry and leads into a amazing little tidal lagoon surrounded by some dead flat farm land, making the best camp spot, it is picturesque and convenient in that we needed to move the boats and gear very little to secure and set up camp. The views and lighting were wonderful tonight.

As soon as the sun went down, temp dropped and the dampness came into the air, it is certainly getting colder, soon we will be having fires. We enjoyed a good meal and the rising full moon, then went to bed falling asleep to the lapping water and the load alarm calls of the Spur Winged Plovers (Birds) roosting in the grass. Tomorrow on to Gisborne.