days 3 and 4

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i've decided to amend my entries....they're too long.

day 3: christmas village to yankee river 12km
i woke today to rain coming sideways because of the wind. the rain though had subsided by the time i was walking. the sun's reflection off the ocean was blinding and beautiful all the same. the trail brought me through more mud and roots though i expected a reprieve....wrong. if what the track description writers mean by 'the track is generally dry underfoot' is 'the track is thick with mud that you must slog through all day long' then they're right. heh. i caught glimpses of tall rimu trees studding the forest, but not much else. lucky beach was rocky and rugged coastline i followed for a short time. the rest of the day was easy, but muddy. :o)

this hut is situated at the mouth of a river. all this afternoon i watched waves crash the coastline one after another and with the wind strengthening them the sound echoes. a huge sea lion flopped up the river and was chilling in the riverbed. now i'm looking outside on the opposite shore a yellow-eyed penguin is waddling home. the world's rarest of the 17 penguin species....the largest temperate penguins....and native to new zealand. i'm so full of bird facts.

day 4: yankee river to long harry 8.5km
today i got a late start, but the walk was pretty short: 5 hours, so it made little difference. it was hard though. i got right into the mud....no suprise there. the track rose steeply and i climbed steadily for an hour or so. sweat was pouring from my forhead as i plodded my way up the slipper slope. i descended into a spooky forest of knarled trees. big bony branches reached out and tangled around one another and they creaked in the strong wind. the forest changed suddenly as i came to a steep descent onto a beach. the trees were low and so thick the light disappeared almost completely a break in the trees revealled a wild beach with huge windswept dunes and waves battering the golden beach. in a few short minutes i was surrounded by dunes and wind bellowing through them stung my legs with sand. i made my way across the dunes and onto the beach. the ocean's waves crashing to the shore were turquoise and with fire in them....they battered the beach steadily and with strength. an angry sea and one with so much soul that looking out onto it brought a well of emotion and tears to my eyes. the seaspray left a haze on the opposite end of the beach.

the hut is perched at the edge of a cliff that leads quickly to ocean. a rocky coast meets raging sea which fades to white at the horizon and bleeds into the sky. the sun set tonight behind the hills and cast a pink sky highlighted with blue and shadowed with grey in front of me and over the ocean. the small offshore islands that were blue in the afternoon light have now become mysterious shadows in the blackened sea. the wind is still whipping outside as the stars are beginning to appear. this is a place full of magic and strength.

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