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Published: January 13th 2009
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The west coast ….
Our first destination on the west coast was Westport; a large town about 3 hours drive from Motueka. On our way we visited the Buller Gorge which is home to New Zealand’s longest swing bridge. What they don’t tell you, is that it’s about 6 inches wide at the bottom and 2 foot wide at it’s widest point. It makes for hilarious sights, people sort of shuffling across the bridge not to mention when two people going the opposite direction cross paths. We had the pleasure of encountering a woman who was afraid of both heights and bridges. (Yes we also wondered why the hell she was putting herself through it.) She was shaking with nerves and when there was still about 10 feet between her and us she was already anticipating an untimely death for us all. Needless to say we just reassured her that if she stood still we could move slowly past her and we would all live to fight another day.
It was a fabulous sunny day and the water in the gorge was a sparkling greenbluesilver. I know it’s not really a word but that was the colour!
We
continued on our way, reaching Westport at lunch time and once we had checked into our hostel we made our way out to Cape Foulwind. The area was named by Captain Cook in 1770 because of the battering his ship, the Endeavour was taking just off the coast. Here we parked up and walked 20 minutes to Tauranga Bay along a nice scenic track. The bay is home to a fur seal colony and summer is the best time of year to visit. We saw about 10 seal pups and at least 25 adults. Fur seals (Kekeno in Maori) were hunted almost to extinction (less than 10% of their original numbers) until they became a protected species under the Marine Mammal Protection Act in 1978.
We also went for a walk along Carter’s beach and we got a taste of what Cook may have been referring to. The winds picked up rather swiftly and produced some spectacularly large breakers for us to run away from as we paddled.
A bloody gorgeous chicken rogan josh with basmati rice and garlic and herb naan rounded off another brilliant day.
The next destination along the coast was Hokitika but
we made a couple of stops along the way. The first of which was the small town of Punakaiki which is famous for its “Pancake Rocks”. The pictures of these rocks really speak for themselves. The Pancake Rocks are limestone formations that began forming 30 million years ago, when lime-rich fragments of dead marine creatures settled on the seabed, and were then covered by layers of soft mud and clay.
Over time the seabed was raised above sea level by earthquakes to form the coastal cliffs and coastline. The sea, wind and rain have since worn away the softer layers to form the unusual rock formations. They can been seen for miles all along the coastline around Punakaiki but the walkway taken by tourists brings you to the most dramatic set of rocks and the areas with the best examples of “pancake stacks”.
Next we drove to the town of Greymouth, the largest town on the west coast. The town gets it’s name from the fact that it was built at the mouth of the River Grey. Very simple and straightforward. Just how the Kiwis like it and we are starting to really come around to this way
of thinking! The town was inhabited by Maori before the arrival of the greedy Europeans who settled here and started the mining industry which the west coast if famous for. Apart from gold, there was also some coal mining. Forestry and fishing remain the two major industries in the town.
It was in Greymouth that we first noticed the somewhat ridiculous amount of Jade (Pounamu) jewellery in the shops.
We reached Hokitika again around lunch time. If you are starting to see a pattern emerging here it’s because there is one. We check out pretty much at 10 am everywhere we stay and we tend to drive for 3 or 4 hours to the next place so we always arrive at lunch time haha!
The hostel was one of the nicest we have stayed in so far. It was a two story wooden lodge with beams and hardwood flooring which gave it a really old, sturdy feel but the décor was ultra modern with a corrugated iron panel as the splash guard in the shower. It was so clean we could have eaten our dinner off the drive-way never mind the floor. Another brownie point was the
fact that they had a dog. His name was Syd and he was an Australian Kelpie. He was like a friendly, fluffy, rusty brown wolf-like dog.
Apart from the cute dog, the owner was really cool too and he recommended some places to drive out to in the afternoon. Firstly we went to Lake Kaniere with every intention of going for a swim but the blue children on the beach went some way towards putting us off. We paddled for a while with neither of us brave enough to egg the other one to go in any further, knowing that we would then have to follow! We left as the blue children were being thawed out by their parents and some large towels and headed on towards the Hokitika gorge. I know you are thinking 2 gorges in 3 days, really? But we were assured that this one was worth the 40 minute drive from the lake, 5 minutes of it on a gravel track that did not deserve the term “road”.
The drive was most definitely worth it as we have never seen anything quite like it. We stood in awe for a minute or two before
taking pictures or walking the bridge even occurred to us.
It seemed like an illusion could be the only explanation for the colour of the water. Instead it is actually the mineral deposits leaching into the river from rocks above. The pictures don’t even do it justice but they go some way towards conveying how spectacular it is.
Hokitika was absolutely gorgeous and such a cute town. Again ever second shop was a Jade Jewellers and even on the beach when we were skimming stones every second stone we picked up was a piece of Jade. It is a really pretty stone and some of the brooches and necklaces they make from it are more striking than any diamond I’ve seen.
The final stop on the west coast was Franz Josef where we would see in the New Year. And what better way to spend New Year’s Day than a 6 hour hike up a glacier. The glacier at Franz Josef and neighbouring Fox Glacier are very unique in the fact that they come down to just 300m above sea level. Unlike most of the world’s glaciers, Franz Josef is still advancing, or at least some
of it is - at the terminal face 50%!o(MISSING)f the glacier is advancing and 50%!i(MISSING)s retreating.
The first 45 minutes of the walk, once we had disembarked from our coach, was through the rainforest which encompasses the base of Franz Josef Glacier. It’s position, so close to sea level and housed in a rainforest, means that the temperature around the base of the glacier is quite pleasant and even when we were climbing it was relatively warm. There was quite a large group on our tour so it was split into three teams according to people’s ability and experience. We figured we could climb a little faster than the 10 year old children but maybe not quite as fast as the people who had brought their own climbing gear, so we slotted ourselves into the middle group. This meant we got to climb as high as the first group but had some more time for pictures along the way. It was a fantastic way to see in the New Year and needless to say we slept very well that night 😊
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