Hoki-freakin-tika and the Wild West of NZ

This could be a long post, so you might want to freshen your drink.

We did a road trip this past weekend that took us through Arthur's Pass in the Southern Alps, over to the west coast of the south island.  We had been told by everyone that the west coast was very different from the east coast and even more beautiful, and we were not disappointed.  For starters, we caught three days of the best weather we've had in our whole time here, so mother nature cooperated nicely.

The drive goes up and over the Southern Alps, through Arthur's Pass.  On the east side the Alps are barren and very grey because the climate is much dryer.  We saw about 50 miles of scenes like this:

Once through the top of the Pass, the climate and scenery changes dramatically, to miles and miles of this kind of view on the western slopes:

We did manage to make it over to the west coast after many stops for photo shoots along the way.  Once there, we turned south to the small beach town of Hokitika (Hoka-tic-a) and found our rental cottage.  The cottage is owned by a young couple whose primary business is making beautiful stone mats.  They sift the flat stones found on the beach to get a uniformed size and then glue them to a soft mat:

The uniform thickness and soft mat made them surprisingly comfortable, even to bare feet.  The owners used to live in the cottage we rented, so it was set up to be bright, airy and comfortable on the inside, with a great view of the beach right from our doorstep.

Getting near dinner time, we took the short drive into Hokitika to get "take away" and wine for the upcoming sunset.  While in town, we noticed that Hokitika felt a lot like the area in Florida where we rent a house most Mays--the Redneck Riviera of the southern hemisphere, so to speak.  It really felt like another world so we nicknamed it Planet Hoki-freakin-tika, and that tag stuck the whole weekend.  What a great little beach town!

We went back to the cottage and set our food out for dinner on the patio table, two steps from the beach

and we toasted, "Who's better than us?"  Right then and there--no one!

The next day we headed out to see the west coastline and Punakaiki, the famous "Pancake Rocks" and blowholes  The drive featured some winding roads that gave us great looks at the coastline.  This set of rocks is called the Apostles, but should be called "Rabbit Rocks."  Look closely and you'll see why:

The Pancake Rocks at Punakaiki were formed by millions of years of alternating sediment buildup, followed by sea erosion.  It's not hard to see how they got their name:

When the tide is high and the seas are up, the waves go between some of the stacks and shoot up from small holes in the rocks.  They make a big sound and shoot spray up a long way.  Punakaiki was quiet that day, but we did see some small blow hole action on some rocks just north of there, off Thompson's Track:

We headed back to Hokitika for a late lunch and then went out to Kaneiri Lake, not far away.  We had hoped to hike the lake, but it was late so we took a slow drive around it.  We came across Dorothy Falls at the far end of the lake:

Back at the cottage again, Mike took a nap while Terry scoured the beach for shells, greenstone, jade, and penguin tracks.  This part of NZ is well known for greenstone and jade, used to make jewelry by Maori artisans.  It is the only place in NZ were these stones can be found, but a lot of fakes are in stores across the country.  Terry did find a few pieces of greenstone, that has a soapy feel to it--but no jade.

We have been very anxious to spot some penguins in NZ--see an earlier posting about that.  Blue Penguins are known in the Hokitika area, but proved to be impossible to spot.  They are very shy and very nocturnal, crossing to/from the shore and their nests in the tall thick bushes on the shore only in the dark.  On our last morning Terry did see a few tracks, but that was it.  Sorry, Aliesa--no photos to send back to you.

We enjoyed an even better sunset the second night at the cottage, and then made an early start back over the Southern Alps on Sunday.  At one stop Terry got her best bird sighting--a group of five Kea that were at a rest stop, looking for handouts.  These are green parrots with irridescent reddish feathers on their tails that can be seen only when they fly.

The rest of the drive east to Christchurch was the same old expected spectacular vistas through the Southern Alps, so not much new to report that way:

We both agreed that this was the best weekend trip we've had in NZ.  We have a little less than 2 weeks left, and will probably not take any more 2-3 day trips.  We'll try to get back to Akaroa for a day trip and to Tekapo for a one-nighter, but plan to spend most of our remaining time in Christchurch, seeing more of the city and working on our long lists of souvenirs to buy for folks back home.

Mike and Terry