Better day, still a bit cloudy, but dry. Kids enjoyed looking at the animals before we left (chickens, goat, pony).Drove back into Riverton for a little food shopping, & to be at the museum for 10am, when it opened. First we watched a 15 min film about the local Maori, & the first Europeans in the area, then walked through displays about the local area, people and gold mining - all together, a really good, little museum.

The lady there told us about "Gemstone Beach" where you can sometimes pick up semi-precious stones. We drove there, and started to walk to the beach, but D caught the eye of a local chap, who asked if we were interested in seeing something interesting, and sad? He pointed back along the bay, & told us that there was a beached whale! It was just about visible from where we were (~3km away), through the binoculars, so we jumped back into the car, and drove back to the access road for that part of the beach, and walked (swiftly) the 500m or so to the whale.

We were able to get to within 10 to 20 m of the Humpback, as it lay (side on to the beach) in the breaking waves. We could see that it was still breathing, and occasionally it would move it's tail, or flipper, but as we watched, it seemed to be getting less and less active, and a (poss DoC) man that we were talking to, told us that it was slowly dying (the lack of buoyancy from being out of water gradually crushes it's internal organs!), and that this was a rare event, the last beached whale in this area was over 10 years ago! It was quite something, being so close to a creature that you would never usually get to see like this, in the wild, and so sad to realise that here was nothing that could be done to help it. We stayed for about 45 mins, then returned back to the car for a change of clothes, and to warm up!

We drove back to Gemstone Beach, ate lunch in the car (thanks to the cold wind coming in from the Antarctic), and went for a brief walk on the sand. The tide was in, so it wasn't the best time to be looking for gems!

Heading north, we stopped briefly at a lookout (even though we had spent all day staring at the sea & coastline!), then the road headed inland. Another photo-op at Clifden, and it's famous suspension bridge, then into Manapouri. We stayed at Freestone BP's - a nice set up, half a dozen cabins, most with solid fuel fuelled pot bellied stoves! We endeed up in the house ($80), & had it all to ourselves! Lit the log fire, & relaxed! Great views of the lake, & snow capped mountains!