On to Furneau Lodge

The next morning was even more warm and brilliant than the day before. I was tempted to just hang out at Resolution Bay for the rest of our stay. But we’d drank almost all our booze, and there was nowhere to buy more until the next lodge, so we had to keep going.

We threw together breakfast using fresh laid eggs from the owner’s chickens (lovely except for the one with the half-formed chicken in it. Ugh. But that’s the price you pay for real eggs, I guess). I made a makeshift frittata using leftover rice, the last of some cumin-seeded cheese from our feast the day before, and fresh cherry tomatoes, and seasoned it all with Manuka-smoked salt.

Properly fortified, and only a little embarrassed at leaving a pile of empty wine and beer bottles behind (could three of us really have drunk all that? Maybe Canadians do drink more than Kiwis), we headed back on the trail.

Our hike was longer than the day before, but less of a climb. The scenery was absolutely breathtaking. At first I felt like I was hiking in British Columbia along the coastline, until I realized that the wild bush in New Zealand looks far more like a jungle, with giant vines and fern trees, than anything I would see in BC. And the little bays and inlets had a brilliant turquoise gleam to them, more like the tropics than anything in Canada. I marveled my way along the trail, trying to discern the strange bird calls and gaping at the giant fiddleheads on the tree ferns—and wondering, are they edible?