Blogs from West Coast, South Island, New Zealand, Oceania - page 14

Or "In Zid" as the locals would say, including my dear Paul. My internet time is about to run out - and has been a bit limited since we've been here - so this shall be brief. We arrived in Christchurch a few days ago, and had fun hanging out with Paul's friend Sarina, husband Aaron, and a-DOR-A-BLE 22-month old daughter Maia. She was lovely - so so cute and funny, and we enjoyed chasing her around. Christchurch is nice enough, although we'd been there before so not a great deal new to see. Last night we stayed in Greymouth, and are now in Fox Glacier, where we're up early tomorrow for a glacier walk. Should be fun! We've rented a car and have been enjoying driving around, as it's a very scenic part of the ... read more

BLACKBALL Blackball was named for the Black Ball Shipping Line, which leased land in the area to mine for coal. It was formerly known as Joliffetown and Moonlight Gully, it began life as a small gold settlement towards the end of 1865 but its development was impeded by the pull of the major goldfield a few miles up the Grey Valley at Moonlight. There the gold was purer and the prospects brighter. The local hotel 'Formerly the Blackball Hilton' was founded in 1910, as the Dominion Hotel, renaming itself to the "Blackball Hilton" after the mine manager, Mr Hilton, after whom the town's main street is also named. It was forced to change its name after objections from the international Hilton hotel chain. It was the development of the coalfield in 1893 that began Blackball's growth, ... read more

Who knows where Okarito is ? Well it seems that more people than I thought do now, the last time I visited here was about 20 years ago and it was the remoteness that attracted me to Okarito then. Even though it is only 10 km's or so from the main State Highway to the Lagoon and Beach at Okarito it's attraction has always been over shadowed by the better known Fox and Franz Josef Glaciers which are on the Main road. The purpose of my visit nany years back then was to stay at the Okarito YHA, I have always been a Life Member of YHA and I enjoyed travelling around staying at the smaller more remote hostels . It was then, New Zealand's smallest Youth Hostel and I recall it only had 4 bunk ... read more

The trip from Wanaka to Franz Josef initially follows Lake Wanaka towards the west, then Lake Hawea and after leaving that lake starts to climb steadily towards Haast Pass. The only village along the way is Makarora and also the only place for petrol for quite some kilometers. I was keen to see Makarora again as I had memories of being stranded there one time when I was in my 20's hitch hiking with my sister Bronwen from Wanaka to Haast. We had beem lucky enough to get a ride from Wanaka after staying with Nancy and Chris for quite some distance to Makarora where there was a Post Office, a couple of petrol pumps and a motorcamp. After being dropped off at Makarora, we went into the shop to get some food and as there ... read more

So i hitched out of golden bay, which was my longest ever wait at 2.5 hours outside Nelson, then 1.25 hours a little way down the road shocking! But i eventually got there and met ben and sarah in Christchurch, not quite as planned but at least we got there. We had a couple drinks in town and then went back to our seperate hostels. Saturday we met up and then tracked down some friends of mine who are living in town building new bikes out of broken ones. We rode around town for a little while on 'mutant bikes' in the beautiful sun and had a really nice day. In the evening a friend of my friends was having a going away party so my post-birthday bash was tagged on to this and great fun ... read more