Blogs from Hokitika, West Coast, South Island, New Zealand, Oceania

One of our travelling party is having her birthday today. Whoops that gave it all away! It seems a bit unusual to be travelling on your birthday as it is normally time to sit back, kick your shoes off and be waited on rather than being the chief pilot of the rented Toyota Corolla with a few hundred kilometres of highway and scenery ahead. One fortunate feature of being independent travellers is that you can choose the time to get up, have breakfast and get on the road rather than being in a group party and have your suitcases out at the prescribed time. After a short discussion, about our travels so far and where we w ere going, with our hosts at the Air BnB we got the car pointing south and headed for a ... read more

We had some great time since the last entry. The weather got worse though, however we expected it so no disappointment there.. We tend to arrive somewhere and find some great walks which are usually free. New ZealandTourism is trying to make so much money on tourists, it is unbelievable. One of the walks was a walk round Punakaiki and Pororari River. You can hire a kayak there as well. The look of the rocks and mirror-like river is just beautiful. We went for a swim naked as well before all the tourists could see us! I really liked town called Hokitika, shame it was raining all day as we ended up in the library. Hokitika is known for a green stone called Jade http://www.jadecountry.co.nz/ It is a beautiful stone but expensive one! We headed towards ... read more

Overnight at Murchison Follow Buller River thru gorges etc down to Westport. No time for suspension bridge / slide wire trip! Lunch picnic at Carters Beach Down coast to Greymouth, Hokitika and then Lake Kaniere where Jim & Margaret were waiting to meet us. The house is now finished (apart from the odd cupboard door) and a great place to stay. we were lucky that it was fine and next day went with them to see the Hokitika Gorge with fantastic blue water. (pic to follow)... read more

Well its been almost two weeks now since our last tramp, and we are still kicking about in Ross. We are staying at Ben's sister's house, earning our keep by painting the roof, chopping firewood, clearing scrub, foraging for blackberries and looking after our neice and nephew. We've done a couple of walks as well. It is official. Ben and I are appalling at fishing. We spent an entire afternoon on Lake Mahinapua fishing for evil perch and didn't get a single bite. This is despite John assuring us that the last time he came out with the kids they hauled in something like 27. (I secretly believe that is why there are none there anymore!) We also tried our hand at surf casting. Between us, we must have caught about 15 sharks but they were ... read more

Hey guys, Sorry its been a while but were gonna try and get you all caught up on our south island trip. So weve been on south island for about 8 days now and I should first let you know that if you're following our progress on a Itinerary you should prob just throw it away (at least as far as south island is concerned. Of the top of my head we were supposed to be in Christchurch for about 5 days then up to nelson, then arthurs pass, queenstown and so on. Well 5 days in christchurch turned into just over a week , but a very good week. Included in this week were watching canterbury play at jade, playing a round of golf staying up at a bar in town till 4am to watch ... read more