Harwood's Hole

Next stop, Golden Bay. With a quick visit to Takaka, Bo's family, and the Mussel Inn, we spent most of our time in the area at Harwood's Hole. This is a hole in the earth about 50 meters wide, and 200 meters down. Professional abseilers can descend to the bottom and cave all the way out of the mountain. But being the amatures we are, we decided to just chuck rocks down it instead. It took about 7 seconds before a thundercrash echoed back up the hole. Just count that. Climbing to the top lip of it involved no path, but steps of razor thin marble and trecherous traversing of sink-hole forests. The view from the top however made it all worthwhile with a gaping hole on one side, and breathtaking gorge on the other. We should call it Daniel's Danger tour.