Walking the clifftop

Kaikoura has an amazing clifftop walk, part of the Kaikoura Peninsula Walkway. It’s over an hour from one end to the other, and of course you have to go up the hill at each end from the car parks to the cliff top. The sign at the start said: “Experience panoramic views of ocean, rocky coastline, twisted limestone, seals and sea birds”. The views were so fabulous it was hard to pick a best photo.

We walked parts of it several times during our stay there, and on our last afternoon we walked it from the South Bay car park to Point Kean and back. We had to be careful to stay on the track, and to cross over every stile we found. Once we missed a stile and had to retrace our steps because we ended up in a field full of cows, and couldn't get back to the track. Of course, if we'd been paying attention we would have noticed that every time the path changed direction, there was a big metal pole. It took us 2.5 hours that day, and according to my pedometer, we walked over 11,000 steps, or over 4 miles. That’s a new record for me.