Blogs from Kahurangi National Park, South Island, New Zealand, Oceania

We awoke to another absolute cracker day in Karamea and the sound of the two milk tankers on the nearby SH67 that travel 234km each way every day to and from Hokitika on SH6 and SH67 to pick up milk from the 29 dairy farms in the Karamea region. Actually the tankers don’t really make much noise it is just that with so little traffic coming and going into Karamea that there is no competition for road noise from other traffic on the road. We have three planned walks today in the local Karamea area with no drives into the forest like yesterday among them. There appears to be only one other guest staying in the 8 unit motel and they appear to be in Karamea helping a dairy farmer out with milking from what we ... read more

Now that we were preparing to move on from Takaka the sun was coming out in full force! This morning was the earliest we had arisen for several days but we knew we had a good distance to cover to our next destination at Karamea. With a full tank of petrol we headed along the fertile Takaka Valley to East Takaka which is sited at the foot of the hill road and then started the steady rise to the top of the hill and at 791 metres above sea level the road features in the website ‘Dangerous Roads ‘although it doesn’t seem to have any other warnings except that there are 257 corners to negotiate with some hairpins being almost 320 degrees. It didn’t bother us and the only regret we had having tackled the road ... read more

There was more wind and rain along with a measure of thunder during the night and it didn’t appear as though there was going to be any moderation of the weather during the day. However we had come to the Buller with a plan in mind and a bit of a wild ‘weather bomb’ wasn’t going to put us off. To set ourselves up for the assault on the first hour or 3.9km of the Heaphy Track,one of New Zealand’s Great Walks we had to drive to Karamea some 90km north of Westport. The suggested time to walk the 7.8km round journey from the car park at the start of the track to Scott’s Beach and back was around 2 hours and with the trail described as easy to moderate it looked like that could be ... read more

After witnessing our first brilliant West Coast sunset at Gillespie's Beach, Linda and I woke the next morning (Thursday 2nd March) and weren't at all surprised to find the mountains just inland from the coast covered in clouds... while we soon found ourselves covered in sandflies, yet again! But after cursing our way through a hurried breakfast, we were soon to hit the road when suddenly the clouds parted to reveal the highest peaks in New Zealand in all their snow-bound glory – from Torres Peak (3114m) on the right to Mount Tasman (3498m) on the left; while in the middle was the highest peak of all: Aoraki / Mount Cook, with it's summit piercing the sky an astonishing 3748m above sea level (about 3745m above where we were standing!). Unfortunately though this would turn out ... read more

Two nights in Kahurangi are, somehow, already in the past. Before the first night there were four hours of hiking in the afternoon heat past Flora hut, a number of shelters, streams, and waterfalls to an empty Salisbury Lodge. Then a hike up to the Tablelands summit (if a tableland (plateau) can be said to have a summit) and then back to complete the a hike round the bizarre landscape of the potholes - strange depressions where the landscape seems to be feeling the weak force of gravity a bit more than most. I have the luxury of having the (large) hut to myself again. Before the second night there is a big day. Leaving the hut an hour later than planned, I'm on the trail by 9am. An hour of slow trudging gets me through ... read more