Day 2: Oreti Beach Track

The day started at the Central City Camping Park in Invercargill. As it was going to be a beach walk, we needed to time our day for low tide at 15:24. We aimed to be at the beach around 12:30 to give ourselves 3 hours either side of low tide. The beach section is some 22 km long, but it is a 10 km (2 hour) walk adjacent to the road to get there. This meant a leisurely start to the day, with some first aid on a blister, a small resupply of food at Pak'n'save, some stove gas at H&J outdoors store, and most importantly: brunch at a cafè.

Departing Invercargill there's a dead straight road all the way west, with an adjacent cycling/walking path. We walked past a couple of golf courses, and the area appears to be something of a Mecca for outdoor clubs and activities. Paintball, mountain biking, dog sledding, a pistol club, boating, kayaking, golf, rugby, and clay shooting. We met a woman sitting on the grass parked up by a power pole with a cross and flowers adorning the perimeter of its bottom, quite sombre. We reached the beach around 12:30 and stopped for lunch. Entertainment was provided courtesy of some freedom campers and the police. If anyone can explain how these two cars came to their predicament in a remote car park all by their lonesome then I would be impressed. What we couldn't make heads nor tails of, is that the vans boot is open.

We made a start after lunch but in getting up I'd realised that the cramps had set back into my calves and hamstrings. Something that had developed very late in the day, and very suddenly yesterday. The likelihood of us completing the full beach walk was low, but we started out with the idea to stop and find a camping spot if needed. The beach was gusty, a constant and unwavering 40 km/h wind was belting at us incessantly. Our rain jackets served as a good wind break against this, though my seat pad did not fare so well... blown over the dunes and far away at the first opportunity.

We came across a fella out for a drive on the beach who offered us a lift through to Riverton... tempting, but we had the resolve to decline. He made mention of talking to a couple of other trampers the night before when he was out chopping wood; it shouldn't be long before we catch them. The beach is rather shallow, so the sand pack is quite hard, approaching low tide it was quite walkable and we made a good pace. Unfortunately on weary legs we needed more frequent breaks, and after each break my legs would get tighter and tighter until I was forced to bring out the hiking poles to maintain balance.

We reached the last potential water source, a small creek running through farmland out to the sea. We still had plenty of clean drinking water... 3 L or so, but elected to set a stealth camp by this. It turns out we weren't the only ones to have this idea. After walking not far up the creek, we happened across some tyre tracks, and these led to something of a permanent stealth camp setup. A canvas tent was erected, cut into some pine trees with the dunes behind them for a wind break. The tent was complete with furnishings... even a couch. They'd also cleared a site adjacent with pine needles on the floor, and we elected to pitch our tent there. We made use of their campfire chairs for dinner (a haphazard mix of black bean noodles, muscles, salami, dehydrated peas, and swathes of hot sauce) and tucked in for an early night.

We'll have 10 km of beach left to walk tomorrow to reach Riverton for our big resupply ahead of the Longwood forest.

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