Monday 5 June – another waterfall

We had Greg and Jan over for a cooked breakfast in the morning. They like us were depleted of fresh provisions after being in the Tuamotus. They said they would like to join us on the walk up to waterfall that Rowan never quite got to on his own. We finally got going after the dock master moved Jan and Greg on their boat Viridian to our pontoon opposite Cloudy Bay.

We drove a km or two up the valley to the base of the waterfall trail and found two security men demanding that we go back into town and get a permit that we have to pay $6 for at the Marie (Municipal Hall). We were running late already, and going back into town would take another hour, it was rated a difficult walk and going to take us at least 5 hours, so we abandoned the walk. Actually I think Greg was quite relieved as he has new hips and was not bargaining on such a strenuous walk. Instead we carried on driving around the island to some waterfalls we did not stop at the other day. It was a very short walk to the string of falls. They were pretty impressive in a bowl of dense vegetation. Amazing the amount of infrastructure put in place to make it all accessible.

On our way back we dropped Greg off and went to the big Carrefour Hypermarket to stock up on a few things like tonic water, which is difficult to get in town. With the car it was worth while getting our heavy purchases like milk and drinks. We enjoyed shopping with so many options, the biggest supermarket shop since Panama. Sadly though tomatoes are like gold dust, which is why they are so pricey. They had no tomatoes and were running short on eggs! Surprising as there are chickens everywhere, loads of wild ones all along our trail we climbed the other day, there are obviously no predators at all. Jan managed to do a spectacular shop in that short time, with help from Rowan.

It felt like we have had a few busy days so we were glad to have an early night.

Jan and I are both 5 foot nothing so needed a bit of height at Vaimahuta falls

The stream wondering down the valley

Interesting basins eroded half way down the falls

Water coming down everywhere

In the evenings there is a lot of canoe practice going on