Sawcut Gorge

We've had an adventure and a half today. With our motorhome we were given a book of must see sites which are not on the usual tourist radar. Today's location was Sawcut Gorge, just south of Ward on the east coast, and described as 'a scenic 12k gravel road drive to the trailhead at the Blue Mountain Station homestead.' The homestead was where we had to park up and then follow the streambed to the gorge. The drive was indeed scenic but the final three miles was on single track, windy, precipitous gravel road and just a bit scary. Thankfully we didn't meet anyone coming in the opposite direction. The 80 minute walk to the gorge was mainly in the stream itself or crossing from bank to bank through the stream and that was great fun. The cliffs gradually closed in on us from either side until finally we rounded a bend and were at our destination, this incredible cleft in the rock. The return walk in the stream was just as much fun but we were glad to be back down in the flat valley (which was wall to wall grape/wine country) in the van. Then we continued south alongside a turquoise ocean until we stopped at Ohau Point to look at the seal colony. There were hundreds of them enjoying languishing in the late afternoon sun or playing in the pools of trapped water in the rocks, a great end to today. We didn't get as far south as planned but decided to stop here at Kaikoura and enjoyed a beautiful sunset over the Kaikoura Range of mountains a short while ago.
Early start tomorrow and on to Methven and the Edoras Tour, woo hoo!