8 January 2018: Amanda Krom (Nursing ‘19)
Good morning from Torrent Bay!
It was a relaxing day considering all of the running around we’ve been doing during the first week of the course/trip. Our family woke up slow to an oatmeal and raisin breakfast in the middle of nowhere. We are camping in the southeast corner of Abel Tasman National Park. It is beyond beautiful here! Today we were beach bums, glow worm watchers, and adventurers, of course!
My morning went like this....while drinking my instant coffee, I observed a cicada. Dr. Robinson pointed out that it had markings on its wings that looked exactly like musical notes. It was a beautiful little insect up close! Then, I caught some rugby balls with my ‘mates’ in the crystal blue water. Then, we caught some rays in the sand. I did a mini yoga session in the sand by the water. It really enhanced my sense of inner self peace and balance. After, I walked the shoreline to collect some beautiful sea shells.
One of the millions of cicadas ‘calling’ in the native bush/forest around our campsite. Notice the musical notes on the wings!
Family dinner was delicious, given what we had: fresh peppers, an onion, tortilla shells, hummus, and salsa. After dinner, took an adventure to Cleopatra’s pool! Cleopatra’s pool is a natural-made swimming hole within a stream and is filled with water flowing down the Torrent River through a slide made of rock and covered in moss. Totally rad! Everyone went down the slide, even the ones who were second guessing it. They were glad they did. We all had a blast.
Cleopatra’s Pool (center of photo), including the rock slide (upper right portion of the picture).
Torrent Bay during low tide. The exposed tidal flat allowed us to shorten our hike to Cleopatra’s Pool. On the tidal flat were thousands of small crabs that raced into their burrows as our group walked toward them!
When we got back to camp, we had some hot chocolate for dessert to get warmed-up after the chilly water at Cleopatra’s Pool. The night wasn’t over, though! Following our hot drinks, we headed down our beach in search of glow worms! Glow worms hide in colonies in dark caves. It wasn’t that scary though. Glow worms are fly larvae that have a glowing blue-green bioluminescence and a silk thread that dangles nearby. The fly larvae do this to attract prey at night. Pretty genius since flies are attracted to light at night. Glow worms are endemic to New Zealand. It was a once-in-a-lifetime experience.
Overall everyone had a day full of adventure and new things!
P.S. The night of January 8th 2018 I saw the most stars I’ve ever seen in the night sky!
No comments:
Post a Comment