27 Nov 2012

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27 Nov 2012
Yesterday I decided to make my way back to Nelson to head South to some new territory. It was pretty easy to hitch hike from the Hangdog campground back to Nelson. I only had to wait about ten minutes for someone to pick me up right outside the campground. Got picked up by a nice older New Zealander that dropped me off on the far end of town in Motueka. From there it only took me another ten minutes to get picked up by another New Zealander. Both guys that picked me up were very nice and were interested in where I came from and what my plans were. Got into Nelson at about noon and was able to check into the same hostel that I stayed at when I was in Nelson last week. I also decided to take a bus out of Nelson because it can be kind of tough to find a ride out of he city. So today I headed on the bus to the small town of Punakaiki. It was about a four hour bus ride through some low lands and some hills. Of course I saw lots of sheep, but I also saw reindeer, along with a couple of emus. We traveled along a river a about half of the drive and continued to crisscross over it until we hit the coast. One thing that I have found interesting about some of the bridges here are one lane bridges. I'm not talking about small country roads either these are main roads used by all. Once I got to Punakaiki I headed up he road on foot to check out the Pancake rock formation, which was cool to check out but was nothing too special. But I did see a few penguins and the view of the beach and some of the other rock formations just up from the beach is pretty cool. All the rock here in this area is limestone. The bigger limestone formations up from the beach are huge and look as if there might be some good routes on them but accessing the base of the rocks would be tough, due to the fact that the trees and brushes are so thick. Since I had some spare time this afternoon I decided to go for a short day hike. The trail called Porari River Track, which was not to far from the hostel I am staying at was supposed to take about three and half hours but I finished it in about two hours. For some reason the signs for all the hikes here over estimate, or just think that people are going to walk at a snails pace. It was a nice hike right along the river for the first half with big walls of limestone on either side of the river and plenty of lush green tress along with other vegetation. It was a loop track and When I was looping back around the trail kept going up and I was hoping that it would take me atop the limestone walls, but never did. When I finally came out onto the road it put me about 30 minutes, walking, north of where I got onto the trail. I was a bit confused when I hit the road but figured it out shortly. The rest of the evening I sat and read and listened to the many Germans staying me my hostel chat with each other.

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