C'mon cow - PUSH

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- FOOD: Some damn fine pub grub.

- AREA: Pretty coastal walk in Abel Tasman National Park. Watching a cow (almost) give birth.

- PEOPLE: Sweet local boys but awful chat up lines. A man telling us off for our highly illegal parking. No-one but us and some oyster catcher birds in the park.

- WEATHER: Singing in the rain... and the mist... and the wind. Oh, and the sun eventually.


Thur 11th Aug: After 3 hours on the ferry we arrived at Picton where we found the nearest car park and slept more. It was raining heavily as we drove up to Nelson and didn't stop when we got there so we hung out for a while and then went onto Takeka, in the Abel Tasman National Park via the gorgeous coastline which we didn't see much of because of the rain.

We did stop at Kaiteriteri which is supposed to be one of the best beaches but to us it was just grey and miserable so we continued in the dark on windy roads against heavy rain and mist to our destination.
Found a pub with a good atmosphere and nice grub where the locals plucked up the courage to use their best chat up line on each of us ("How's it going?" - with nothing more to add on hearing the reply) and I phoned my Nana on her 90th Birthday.


Fri 12th: We were informed by a well meaning local that the parking manoevre we'd made from one side of the road to the other in this incredibly quiet town with no other cars and hardly any people around was "highly illegal" and that we must be either British or Dutch to have committed such a horrendous crime. Some people over here really do not have much to do...
We got to Totaranui and went for a nice 2 hour coastal walk in the park, through tall forests of kanuka trees and along beach (the weather had cleared for us and was really sunny). The only other life forms walking the beach were 2 oyster catcher birds - black with long orange beaks who were behaving like an old married couple - very sweet. At the end of the trek was a huge peaceful swamp where we had to turn back.

Our journey back was held up by spending about an hour glued to watching cows in a field we'd passed earlier give birth. Earlier there had been lots of cows and quite a few tiny calves - now there was only 2 cows and one calf. We figured it was 'giving birth' time in 'giving birth' field and so were determined to watch the last cow give birth. The farmers thought we were a bit mad driving forward, then reversing, then driving forward again to get the best view but we didn't care.
We watched the still pregnant cow eat the placenta of the one that had just given birth and we saw the new baby stand for the first time and cling to it's Mum. We saw her lying down, contracting, standing up, pushing but did we see her give birth? - NO. It got dark too quickly so we drove off without having seen the marvel dammit and drove on to Westport.

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Photos

Interesting view of the cow who has just given birth
and her baby who has just made his first steps...