It had rained heavily during the night and it was still lashing it down when we got up. We decided to stay in Westport one more night and not do very much today. By mid afternoon the downpours had eased and we had a walk to the beach across the road from the camp site. It was a dark and brooding but quite beautiful beach with black and dark coloured sand. It was littered with washed up timber and there were gorgeous patterns in the sand formed by the advancing an...

After brekky we headed out of Murchison. It was another gorgeous day. About twenty kilometres from Murchison we stopped at the Buller Gorge Swingbridge. At 110 metres long it is the longest swingbridge in New Zealand. It spans the Buller River that we saw rippling past. We both made our way across with me feeling a little uneasy as I hate heights. It was fun though in a kind of scary way. Once across we went on the walking trails through the native bush. The walk...