New Zealand Part 20 - Nelson Lakes and Hokitika

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Beautiful lakes, Jade shops, Pancakes, Jade shops, socks and more Jade shops

My plan was to take us via Nelson Lakes as I once had a poster on my wall as a teenager of one of these lakes (called tranquillity or something, I got it from Athena and it had a jetty in the middle running out onto the lake, you may remember it). It was a lovely drive down, for once we had radio reception and we decided to take the more direct but windy scenic route rather than the “motorway”. So we just drove along on this sunny afternoon, singing and enjoying the view, it was fab. Really felt like a Sunday afternoon when you’re heading back home from a great day out before the traffic. Once we had got to Lake Rotiti I realised we wouldn’t just be staying for a bit to take some photos, we would be staying the night, it was so beautiful. I know the weather helped but it was this huge clear water lake, with kids jumping off the jetty and speed boats zooming around. It was however covered with people and sand flies, but the water looked so inviting (I mean I wouldn’t dare swim in a lake back home, who knows what’s been in it and normally you cant see the bottom, just the local supermarket trolley sticking out) I decided I would go for a swim.

I had noticed there were rather large eels hanging in the shade of the jetty and every now and then swimming between the children jumping of, just to frighten them. This didn’t put me off; although they looked horrible I was pretty sure my feet (trotters) kicking about in the water would be more repulsive to them. So with our bathers on I suggested we jump of the jetty as the water looked cold and I didn’t think we’d be able to convince ourselves to gradually make our way in. Not sure Nath was entirely convinced and by the time we got to the jetty edge he was whimping out. I whimped out slightly by deciding not to completely jump off the jetty (it seemed higher up than I realised) so I just slid off of it. Wow that water was the coldest so far, I screamed but again tried not to swear as there were children near by and they seemed to be doing it effortlessly (they were wearing wetsuits though). It took a long time to get vaguely warm which didn’t help my convincing of Nath to come in. He gingerly made his way waist height into the water and then spent ages trying to convince himself to go under (Nath - after getting waist deep and feeling my testicle retreat past my lungs I was having some second thoughts). It was only because someone wanted to bring their boat back in up the slipway that he was forced to move out the way by swimming and he eventually took the plunge.

0.23 seconds later he was done and out again “I’ll go get the camera and take some nice shots of you” he said!! Once I had stopped shivering I could actually enjoy being in the lake, it was so clear and fresh and hey I was swimming in a bloody lake, how weird is that!! After we had dried off we went and got ourselves a pitch at the near by DOC site (one that had power for once) and then went back to the jetty to start taking our pictures to imitate the poster I had once had. Luckily by now all the families were heading off back home, I guess ready for school/work the next day (heheheehhe) so we managed to have the jetty to ourselves, well except for the ducks who decided they wanted in. After about 1000 shots we decided to give in but, maybe come back to take some other shots at dusk, and anyway we were getting hungry and Nath (who wasn’t wearing insect repellent) was being eaten alive. After dinner we went back and got our “evening shots” and made it back to site just in time to catch the DOC ranger who was collecting fees. Now as we had forgotten to pay at another site we decided to ask this lady if we cold give her the extra we owed and she could pay it into the whole DOC funds pot so to speak. This it seemed was far to much effort for her to take on, the responsibility I guess of a few more dollars would have kept her from sleeping at night or something, so after looking at us like we were mad, she just suggested we don’t bother.

Later that night we ventured out into the cold (as it had been a clear night) to take yet more shots of the jetty and some stars, but it was so dark that we couldn’t get much at all. I did set the alarm clock for dawn but again decided when it went off that getting out of a nice warm bed wasn’t such a good idea and turned it off and went back to sleep - hey we had enough shots anyway!

Next morning we were up and out at a reasonable time despite pressing snooze several times - whoops, and heading for the west coast. The scenery was quite dramatic, but we are finding, as we did with our Scotland tour, that we are getting a little blasé about the scenery (oh wow look ANOTHER mountain and stunning scene). I’m sure once we get to dry and dusty oz we’ll wish we were back here!!! Anyway we passed through the Buller gorge, which is famous for having a jet boat and canyon swing down it, but didn’t stop for this, one because we are still on a tight-ish schedule and two as soon as we step outside the van hundreds of bloody sand flies are waiting for you. So it was straight off to the west coast then where the dam things are said to be even worse! They are organised, carry baseball bats and are meant to mug you in your sleep apparently - yippee swollen everything for me!!!! (Nath - lets hope they bite Mandy on the boobs!)


Well the west coast delivered much as it had promised in all the guide books, to be spectacular in scenery. I only wish that my fondest memory was of one of the mountain ranges, but I’m afraid when I look back the clearest image in my mind, is of a fence with lots of different coloured bras hanging on it in the middle of nowhere - sorry (no pictures though, WE DON’T HAVE TIME TO STOP GOD DAM IT!!!). We did however stop at the Punaki pancake rocks, so named because they do look like stacks of pancakes (imaginative bunch these Kiwis). We walked around the park they were in which brought you to some stunning coast line, with milky blue water. This was something Evy had said she found amazing but I wasn’t sure I believed her until I saw it for myself, every lake, stream and ocean was this lovely colour. Anyway after walking round the rocks, Nath stood for about an hour waiting for this blow hole to, well blow, along with a dozen other sad tourists. As usual I gave up and lost patience after about 5 mins and kept reminding Nath that it was only a spray of water he was waiting for. After announcing to those standing near by that the excitement had taken me and I needed to move on, I walked off and waited for Nath by the car….needless to say when he eventually returned, not only was I now another year older but the hole hadn’t blown at all!!! (apparently the sea was too calm that day) On leaving the area we decided to pop into some caves we had seen advertised on the way in (not on the way back though as over here you only travel in one direction so why label both sides!!), it was a proper cave system that you could go quite far into but I was a little nervous as even with our little torch we could hardly see anything. I hadn’t honestly thought it would be a proper cave so still had my flip flops on, and it was too dark to go back so I followed Nath in anyway. I was so busy making sure my footing was right that I didn’t actually think about my head and ended walking straight into a very hard rock. Think the rock came off worse than I did but it did really hurt and I had to leave to check my wounds. Nothing but a bit of a bruise and some dirt scuffed on my head- phew I’d hate to see what state the rock was in.

From here we where driving like mad to get to a DOC site I had seen in our DOC site guide book before it got dark. It was early evening and we still hadn’t eaten or done any food shopping for the next few days either, so rather than get somewhere and eat late, we decided that after our food shop we would stop at good old MacDonald’s and then get to our DOC site in the dark instead. Mmmm one McAngus burger later we were off again and enjoying the sunset along the coast. We were sure we could see land in the distance, which is weird coz looking at all my maps there shouldn’t be anything there, and we were sure it wasn’t cloud as it looked so lumpy?? (Never did find out what it was). Anyway we finally got to the DOC site which was the other side of Hokitika about 9:30pm and found a fairly level piece of ground in the middle of the camp site, and after setting up we were straight to bed. Next morning we awoke to find a ticket on our window from our “friendly” DOC officer to say we needed to pay - dam it, we were hoping to escape paying but as we are never up and ready much before 10am (you’re surprised I know) we can never evade the dam rangers hehehe. We also noticed that in the middle of the night we had parked pretty much in the middle of the campsite with everyone around us - it reminded me of that scene in “Manikin” when the guy wakes up naked in the middle of the department store…anywho….

From here we headed back to the town of Hokitika to find the cheapest campsite ever ($15 total per night, that’s half the price of all the other sites) so we could have a shower and figure out what we were gonna do next. The whole point of being this side of the country was to go to the glaciers, and on the helicopter ride, so the weather being right was a must. Therefore we decided not to head straight off to Frans Josef but spend a bit longer in Hokitika waiting for the weather to improve.

So that afternoon all three of us (us and Elton!!!) Spent the afternoon being models and posing for photos for Elton’s up and coming début on the trading website we would be selling him on. Although this was lots of fun and we all laughed a lot, including Elton, we felt bad as we felt like we’d only just got use to having him and now we would have to sell him!!! After the photo shoot we headed into town and parked up outside the library to use the free internet (this is such a good idea, we just go from town to town now and never have to pay for the internet ever again bwhahahahahahahahah). We spent a lot longer than we meant to checking out the weather, sorting the blog, researching and so much more I can’t remember now. We got the advert together after what seemed like hours of choosing the right photos and the right wording to optimise our chance of sale and then finally headed back to the camp site (also mainly because the library by this point was shutting so the internet was turned off, D’oh!).

That evening, even though we had no plan to see the lightening thief (some kid’s film) it was the only thing on in Hokitika, but it was being played at their main tourist attraction, the renovated regency theatre. Being art deco, I made us go and am glad we did as it was very cute inside and reminded me of being a kid. Not that I was born in the 1930’s just that it had the traditional stage with curtains, a hostess that sold sweets and ice cream in the lobby and an old fashioned projection room. The film was ok and we left for our campsite in the pouring rain, planning to head into town the next day to make proper use of what Hokitika had to offer…… Turns out there isn’t much it has to offer bar many many many Jade souvenir shops, the incredibly exciting Sock World, which was run by a woman, no a man, no a women (I think) and yes more Jade shops. I can tell you’re excited about Sock World so let me tell you more. It was a shop that sold socks, showed a video of how to weave socks and a collection of very old sock weaving machines on display. Sorry, that’s it, nothing more not even a collection of old socks to sniff. The funniest thing was the woman that owned the “world” was chatting with a tourist about how the locals don’t seem to care too much about socks like they used to.

So with Hokitika exhausted and Nath and I needing a rest from the excitement, we went back to the library and did more on the net (I sat ready the Simarilion - well some of it anyway). It felt like a waste sitting around in this dull town but we figured we were at least being productive with our free internet time and we wanted to wait for the weather to be right for our heli-hike, which was gonna be the most expensive trip on our tour, so it had to be right. That evening we spent our time at the camp site and decided to go to the “glow worm dell” we had seen a sign for once it was dark enough. Although we’d seen glow worms before it was at least something to do and was on the list of must do‘s for the area (and it was free- yeay!). We should have known how impressive it was gonna be because Sock World was also mentioned on the must do list. So on getting there it was just a tiny little cave with some glow worms as promised and a load of people we almost didn’t see in time standing around in the dark. Needless to say after about 5 mins we went back to the campsite to sleep as there wasn’t that much else to do and we wanted to be fully refreshed for Frans Josef.

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Photos

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Couldnt have got it central Mand could ya!!

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You can just about see me in the distance

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I'm swimming in a lake, a real lake, a proper drive up and fish in lake people...a lake!!!

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Trying to put my flip flops back on

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The rest of Fred RIP

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More food thats as big as naths head

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Eels and ducks in the lake with me (and therfore eel and duck poo as well, YUCK!)

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That evening