Touring Along the Top of the World - Hinewai Trip, Day 3 - July 12th

View from Tourist Drive #3

Toe Toe in the sunlight at Hinewai

Sheep!

Another amazing sunny and relatively warm day!  After tidying up at Hinewai, we left for the Tourist Drive along the top of the Banks Peninsula. The hills looked blanketed in green velvet, the toe toe (a small native grass like Pampus pronounced "toy toy") was glistening in the sun, the water was glacial blue, and the sheep were fluffy.  

First stop, Okains Bay and the Maori & Colonial Museum where we saw a large collection of dug out maori boats (waka), bone carved fish hooks, a model of a Marae, and many examples of colonial life in early New Zealand (such as saddles, cheese presses, and jail shackles).  

Okains Bay Beach

Lunch was on the beach at Okains Bay and then an afternoon of views of the various bays and hillsides along the peninsula.  

Looking down on Okain's Bay Beach from Tourist Drive #3

Measuring a Totara tree

We saw from above where we had had lunch on Onawe Pa, and measured a large, old Totara (five of us finger tip to fingertip) before we ended up with an afternoon tea break in Little River and arrived back at Lincoln under a norwest wind sky.  

"Hogs Back" in the sky - typical of a norwest wind

We are a good tired, and will sleep well after the band stops playing for the Lincoln Hoe Down that is welcoming back students tonight. - Meryl