As befit the first full day of our holidays, we slept in. We didn’t wake until after 9am and we didn’t emerge, ready for what the day would bring, until well after 10. It didn’t matter, we were in no hurry. We made sandwiches for lunch and headed off in the late morning. An hour and a half later, we arrived at Kerr Bay on Lake Rotoiti in the Nelson Lakes National Park where the first task was to eat that lunch.

After lunch, I was keen to go for a jog along Lakeside Track which runs up the eastern shore of the lake. Unsurprisingly, no one else was keen to join me so I headed off alone, with the other three walking the same track. As it was an out-and-back track we agreed on a time to turn around, intending to get back to the car at the same time. Surprisingly, this worked out well.

The track mostly followed the lake shore with a few small climbs to get around more difficult sections. There were several opportunities to step off the track onto a beach and take a few photos.

Once back at the car, it was time for a swim. Liz and I were keen but the generally overcast conditions dissuaded Mat and Linda from joining us. The water was warmer than I was expecting and the shore sloped fairly steeply so it was swimable close to shore. This was fortunate as I wasn’t wearing shoes and the stones underfoot made getting into the lake painful.

Eventually, of course, it was time to get out. We weren’t keen to brave the stones underfoot again so swam up the beach a way to a boat ramp where we could get out on smoothish concrete. We were almost there when Mat reported that there was a colony of eels living under the jetty next to the boat ramp and some of them were of unusual size. Liz gave up at that point and headed directly for the shore but I endured and discovered, as I walked up the boat ramp, that Mat had not been exaggerating. We watched as people fed them. Although they were willing to get quite close to us, none of them decided to feed on my feet.

We then drove back to Mapua with those of us in the back seat taking the opportunity to enjoy a snooze despite our 10 hours of sleep the previous night. We stopped at Pak n Save in Richmond on the way back and picked up supplies for Liz to cook us a delicious dinner.