East Cape Road Trip - Day 5

We weren't sure whether to go to the East Cape Lighthouse for sunrise or not. It was a bit of a risk because it was so far away and if sunrise was no good then it is a lot of effort for no reward... Glad we didn't bother as sunrise lasted about 2 minutes, but hey, at least we had colour!

We did hit the road straight after sunrise to go to the lighthouse though, and it rained pretty much the whole way there. When we got there we were greeted by a sign that said "800 steps to the lighthouse" - oh joy! We traversed the slippery, muddy stairs carefully (and even more so on the way down). A bit hard to take photos when your legs are jelly but they recovered quick enough lol.

The view was shrouded with cloud (as is the norm on this trip) but it is another thing to tick off the list that we've seen. Very glad we didn't attempt this for sunrise as we would have been climbing those steps in the dark!

There are so many kingfishers up here, a bird I have not yet captured. Side mission for the trip! We chased them down the road, they fleed as soon as we got within range to a new fence post a few posts down. Stalk, flee, repeat. It started raining again so I resorted to shooting from the car with the window down - was actually the closest I got to them today.

There is also so many wandering stock around here.... they take free-range farming to the next level! Cattle, sheep, horses, chickens, goats - and it is always the same-looking young black cow standing its tracks in the middle of the road, refusing to move and making us drive around it! (Similar to this one, but the one below looks about to drop a calf)

We also were lucky enough to spot the only sea lion on the beach here - poor lonely little guy. At first, we thought the sign was for seals but after snapping a pic of him and seeing the cute little ears I was stoked to find it was a sea lion.

Another observation of around here, there are many derelict, abandoned buildings. That or your house is painted a bright, cheery colour (mainly yellow). Would be a great set of photos to snap all the different yellow houses (or abandoned ones, for that matter).

Unfortunately, that is all we took today... The rain set in and kept going for the rest of the day. We grabbed dinner from the local F&C shop aka "The Fish Shop" (thumbs up to good fish n decent chips) and settled in for the night. At least I got to catch up on my editing from yesterday and get today's done as well so now all caught up. Day 5 and still going - a record for me!