Our last real stop on our journey up the west coast to Fox Glacier was at Ship Creek Tauparikaka Walks along the beach & on a boardwalk through some heavy vegetation.
The boardwalk was a great little path through the sand dunes.
I like that the official NZ description is swamp forest- it's a pretty fitting name. There was a small covered area with some educational diagram & an observation tower for great views.
We hiked along the boardwalk & were soon into the think (and very tall!) brush.
The trail led us out to the beach area, which was desolate and some pretty big waves breaking on the shore.
There was a second little lookout deck, barely visible in the photos, that you could hike up to in just a few minutes for a different elevated view.
It's interesting to see two different ecosystems- the beach & the swamp forest, so close together.
This is also the one and only place where we were attacked by the sand flies. I don't think I've ever been attacked by so many bugs at one time!
From the first observation tower, you could see a beautiful mist forming at the base of the mountain where waves were crashing down.
This quiet little tide pool had some birds and fishing just hanging out.
GOOD NEWS OF THE DAY: Done with all the photos in the Wanaka folder- just Fox Glacier & our return trip to Christchurch to blog.
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