Camping Under a Rain Tarp on a Wild West Coast Beach

I'm here on the wild west coast of the South Island of New Zealand. And it really is wild today. I've got my sleeping bag, a rain tarp, a ground sheet and some good food. And I'm going to head about an hour or two along the beach until I find somewhere nice to camp for the night. After the thundering of the waves this is just so still and quiet. It's amazing. So beautiful. I'm absolutely blown away by how beautiful this is. The west coast sand flies along with the ones down in Fiordland are some of the worst in New Zealand. Although I have to say I've encountered some terrible sand flies in Nelson Lakes as well. But in Okorito, which is where this walk starts from, they make their own insect repellent, their own sand fly repellent. And I'm pretty sure that that's because their sand flies are legendary. And right now I've got swarms of them all around me. Absolute swarms. I need to look after this water because there's no water source here. So this is all the water I have. There's nothing quite like a cup of tea to quench the thirst after you've walked for a couple of hours. It wasn't that far but it probably took me about two hours. Walking along the beach is quite tough going. Lots of stopping and starting for me as well. And then searching around here to find a good spot. I think I've found a good spot though. I'm happy with it. I love this big log. Because I think that's going to be a great place to sit and I'll have the fire just over here. I've been looking carefully around this area and trying to work out where high tide is. Because you can't walk that route that we took to get here when it's high tide because of the cliffs. But on the topographical map this area just behind us is 15 metres above sea level. So water's not going to get all the way up there. I'm just not sure how far it comes here. Based on the pattern of the driftwood and where I can see the line of driftwood along the beach. And the fact there's grass here makes me think the water doesn't get up this high. But we will find out at 9.30pm tonight which is still time to move. Worst case scenario if I find that I've got water lapping at my camp. I'm going to have to shift even further that way. Right, let me get the tarp set up. That way I've got peace of mind and I can do that while I'm drinking my tea. And then I'm going to collect some firewood. I thought I had the perfect stick and then it broke. And so I always like to leave the environment looking as natural as possible. So by digging a pit any of the ashes can be buried. And I can scatter the rocks tomorrow and nobody will even know that there's been a fire there. Cheers everyone. That's what happens when you shake it up when you're walking. Oh, that was a good choice. I was trying to decide if I was going to feel like a beer, wine or something non-alcoholic. And I decided to go non-alcoholic. This is Good Buzz Boysenberry Apple Organic Kombucha. So good. I've got everything set up. There's just one thing I need to change. Wait there. I can see it. It's bright orange. And I hate bright stuff when I'm doing a camp like this that just blends so beautifully into the environment. But unfortunately my two hiking mats that are light, which is the Flextown RO5 that I'm using, and my Exped Simlite are both orange. And I think that's for safety reasons. So that if you get stuck, if you're waiting for emergency services to turn up, you can bring your orange mat out and fly it around. Here I am! But I don't want people to find me. Maybe one day I will, but I do have my personal locator beacon for that. I'd rather go unnoticed. So I do wish that some of these products had stealth versions. I've come down here to see you because I was thinking that we might as well go down to the beach while the sun sets. We're going to have some soft tacos, some chicken tacos. So I've marinated the chicken. It's boneless, skinless chicken thighs in nacho, not nacho, taco seasoning. And I've had that marinating overnight and today. And I'm just going to cook that up over the fire and put it in the soft taco wraps with some avocado and coriander and lettuce and cherry tomatoes, some aioli and some lime juice. So that will be delicious. And by fun I mean the challenge of not getting sand in my food. Oh, this smells beautiful. It smells really beautiful. Uh oh. I do my best to give you guys a really good sense of what it's like when I'm camping by trying to let you hear all the natural sounds and see everything that I see. But one thing I can't share with you is the smell. And this smells amazing. You'll have to take my word for it. Right, we have got the barbecued chicken with taco seasoning, avocado, cherry tomatoes, lettuce and red onion. Oh my gosh, there's too much stuff here. Coriander. Love coriander. Aioli. And lime juice. I have to finish getting it set up but that's my mosquito net. It's pretty bougie really. Definitely overkill. But it's all I've got. So don't judge. So the sand flies last night were insane. I was behind this mozzie net and they were on the other side. Like literally I could hear them going. And I'd open my eyes and there's just this swarm right there like trying to get in. And then every now and then I'd realize that there were a few inside and they couldn't get out. So then I'd have to kill those. And I think because they're sand flies, I don't know but I'm pretty sure they live in the sand. So even though I had the mozzie net sort of tucked under stuff, I think they were coming up through the sand. So there was quite a few inside the mesh. So then I got my sleeping bag liner, which is reasonably thin, and put it all the way over my head and tightened it up so that they couldn't get in there. And I could breathe but it was so hot. I think I'd forgotten because this is the first time in ages that I've camped down by the beach. I mean last week I was camping in the mountains at about 900 meters above sea level. And it was zero degrees overnight. Last night it was a low of 12 degrees Celsius, which is warm. And I had my winter weight sleeping bag so I was actually really hot. And then with this sleeping bag liner over my head. So my mat, the Flextail Zero Mattress R5, it was comfortable. It was really nice and comfortable. And I didn't feel any cold underneath me but I don't even know if there was any cold to feel. Yeah, that was comfortable but my sleep wasn't that great. Just because I was a bit hot. Well, I'm all tidied up. There's a whole lot of heavy rain coming this afternoon. And that's going to disguise all my footprints. But other than footprints you wouldn't know that I've been here, which is the way that it needs to be. Leave no trace. For me leave no trace as much as possible means not just don't leave any rubbish but try to leave the environment like you found it. It's just the way I like to do it. I'd like to think that after this afternoon's rain, if somebody else comes along the beach the next day, they can walk right through here and feel like no one's ever been here. And of course thousands and thousands of people have been along here. I mean hundreds of thousands, probably millions, who knows. But isn't it nice to go somewhere and feel like you're the only person in that moment that's been there. I'm going to pack the camera away and we'll get going. It's lovely, isn't it? Well, I probably should keep going. We've still got about an hour and 15 minutes to go. Take the inland route. I was just thinking how honoured I feel to have been able to have camped where I did. Even though New Zealand is an island, well actually we are hundreds of islands in fact. We've got two main islands, the North Island and South Island. And then there's also Stewart Island, there's the Chatham Islands, there are the Auckland Islands, there are all the islands in the Bay of Islands and in Able Tasman. And just islands everywhere. Even though we have a lot of coastline, it's actually really difficult, in my opinion. You might disagree if you're a Kiwi, but in my opinion it's actually really difficult to find a place to legally camp on or near the beach in New Zealand. And when you look at the public conservation land around the South Island of New Zealand, you'll notice that there's not a lot of roads leading right through to the beach on public conservation land. So typically you have to walk to get to the beach. And those places where you can drive up to the beach have restrictions. You can't camp on the beach at or near the road end. And certainly here you'd have to walk for an hour and 15 minutes to even find a place that was safe to camp because of the headland. So you've got to put a bit of effort in, which I think is really good because it does mean that if you're coming out and you're taking the effort, putting in the effort, you're going to take care of the environment. And I think, I don't know, I feel quite a heavy sense of responsibility as somebody who's making videos to put on YouTube. I don't want to make a big deal about it, but I do feel responsible. I know that on social media if you recommend places, often there's an influx of visitors there, and the environment can't always handle that. So I'm not suggesting that suddenly tomorrow there would be 50 people camping on the beach here just because I came. But I do feel a sense of responsibility to, I suppose, remind people that it is a true honour to be able to share this environment. Any environment actually. Any natural environment needs to be protected. So for all my Kiwi viewers, I've got a whole lot more than I used to have. You guys have gone from being 5% of my audience up to 12.5%, which is pretty cool. One out of eight of you are Kiwis, and I just encourage you guys to really think about looking after our special place. Making sure you leave no trace, pick up rubbish if you see it when you're passing. Play by the rules when it comes to things like where you can take dogs and where you can light fires and that kind of thing. I'm not perfect. Goodness sake, I'm not perfect, so I'm not suggesting I am. I do push the boundaries sometimes. Bye beautiful place. Hopefully I'll see you again one day. Oh, it's just so good to be out in nature. One of the things that I just love so much about nature is it's always here. And it's always free. And the great thing with YouTube is it's free as well. It's great to have a platform to share these experiences with you guys. That means that I can share it far and wide. And everybody can get a little bit of that optimism that I have got from being on these trips. But sadly the videos aren't free to make. That's the serious part of this. There's a lot of time, energy and finance that goes into making them. So on that note I just want to say a huge thank you to all of those people that support Adventure OT. Thank you to my YouTube Super Thanks donors. To my Buy Me A Coffee donors and my Buy Me A Coffee members. You guys are amazing. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. Thank you to all of you for watching, subscribing, sharing the video. All of that really matters and really makes a difference. But at the end of the day what actually matters the most is just that you like the video. That's all that matters to me. If you get something positive from it, I have succeeded. Take care everybody. I look forward to seeing you on the next trip. Bye.