The West Coast. Rugged and wild. Full of tourists with their campervans. Roadtrip territory and thats where we were heading.
Day 1 and 2: Nelson
After being up til 3.30am the previous morning finishing the list of Things To Do Before Leaving, getting up at 5.30am to catch the ferry was not pleasant. Neither was Bluebridge's intercom system which shouted the ferry announcements at passengers at a level undesirable at 7am in the morning.
The Roadtrip roles were established early: Designated Driver Derek and Nifty Navigator Rebecca. Unfortunately we were almost in Blenheim by the time I pointed out we weren't on the Queen Charlotte Drive and I wanted to go that way.
Nelson was grey and overcast. Derek spent three hours in an internet cafe typing up his travel articles. I went shopping. One skirt and a djembe later, we drove to spend the night in Ruby Bay at the local campsite.
On the advice of a ex-Nelson chef, the Nelson/Takaka hotspots were the Crystal Pools (Riwaka Source) and Harwoods Hole. The Crystal Pools are glacier-cold. A rather chubby boy of ten who was swimming there at the same time as us, had no hesitation in telling me I would freeze in my bikini - at least he had his fat to keep him warm.
I think it was a compliment.
Harwoods Hole is a 200m daylight shaft. After walking through a strangely silent beech forest, past the pond with an oily sheen that softly bubbled, my nerves weren't really prepared for clambering to the edge of the rocks to look down a gaping hole into the earth.
Derek on the other hand, had no hesitation in leaning over a large rock to see if he could see the bottom of the shaft ... he couldn't.
The night was spent camping at Owen's River, near Murchinson. Derek went for his ritualistic daily swim in the river, which unfortuantely had been contaminated by Didymo. Derek clambered over the aptly named Rock Snot for a pleasant swim anyway.
Day 3 and 4: Karamea/Heaphy Track
The last town at the top of the West Coast is Karamea. Past that is the Heaphy Track and some of the most beautiful landscape in New Zealand. Actually, that entire area left a significant impression on me. I drove the entire way through the Buller Gorge with my mouth open, uuuuu-ing and ahhhh-ing the lush green native bush.
Southern Rata towered skyward and looked suspiciously like Pohutukawa. These trees are definately the Kings of the forest, looming down over the native bush that densely covers the hillsides.
We stayed the night at the DOC campsite. It is right beside the river which flows calmly into the sea ... well calmly when it hasn't been raining all night. We awoke the next morning to a torrential rapid filled river that was gradually eating up the sand. The waves formed and broke in the middle of the river - it was incredible!
We did the start of the Heaphy Track - an hour to Scots Beach.
Derek found a big rock to climb. I got bitten by sandflies. On the way back, we encountered a weka on the track. Standing dead still invited the curiosity of the little bird and it came right up close to my leg and eyed my shoe lace up - which was a little too close to my shin for my liking. After moving my hand slightly, he moved off the track and we walked slowly past him. Upon stopping again, he walked up to Derek's shoes and eyed his shoe laces up. It certainly wasn't timid!
Day 5, 6 and 7 - Pancake Rocks, Blackball, Hokitika and the Glaciers
What more cheesy thing to do than have pancakes at the Pancake Rocks? Derek thought it was a stupid idea. I did notice he also ordered pancakes though ...
Punakaeki is such a beautiful place. The cliffs are amazing - and there is this walk you can do up one river and back down to the Punakaiki River. You do have to do a river crossing though. We were not aware of this until a three and a half hour tramp later when we came upon this river. I got pretty excited - so excited that I didn't even notice Derek had gone quiet. He crossed first to 'test it out'. He almost lost his footing and the water came up to his waist. Still, I was excited. He came back across via a different route and the water was a little shallower and he appeared to be perfectly capable of doing it. He crossed a third time with our gear raised above his head. Still, I was very excited about doing my first river crossing. As Derek came back a fourth time, he started yelling at me very seriously, "watch how I am walking okay!? Up the river and keep moving" ...
yeah yeah, I thought. I'll be fine. And I was ... until we got a third of the way across and the water was swirling around my hips and I felt the full power of the current. I suddenly decided that a three and a half hour tramp back seemed much more appealing and a lot of "I can't do it" and whimpering followed. Needless to say, I froze and needed A LOT of "you're doing it, hurry up and keep walking" kind of encouragement to keep going. I made it across the river - living to bring this exciting tale to you, but without much of my dignity in tact.
I did a lot of whimpering.
A lot.
Blackball is famous for three things (in my world) - 1st: the salami (I am well aware that I am vegetarian but this salami is GOOD), 2nd: Formerly the Blackball Hilton (yup, the Hilton hotel didn't appreciate it when it was called the Blackball Hilton and threatened to sue the hotel of a 350 person town) and 3rd: my great grandfather's grave. Not much else to report from Blackball except for the cutest kitten ever! Chatam was a small tabby kitten that loved to walk around on your shoulders, purring her little heart out.
The excitement of playing with Derek and I was too much for her and she fell asleep.
We stayed with Fiona in Hokitika. Here we are at a mighty river pretending we aren't being eaten by sandflies. This pose lasted 1.3 seconds before we couldn't stand the biting anymore.
She works at the big milk factory and no visit to Hokitika wouldn't be complete without a top notch tour of the Hokitika Milk Factory to learn how milk powder is made. Interestingly, they have these large red buttons with "DELUGE" and "DELUGE ENTIRE PLANT" on the walls of the factory near many of the doors. Derek wanted to push them. Fiona finally explained why he wasn't allowed to ...
you see, milk powder (at this stage) is highly flammable and if there was a spark and the milk powder caught fire, there would be a massive explosion, causing doors to fly open and everything! If this happens, you need to wet everything to stop it happening, and therefore you hit the deluge button. Basically you end up with a 40 ton milk biscuit. I thought this was an exciting prospect (I love milk biscuits) but again ... Fiona wasn't too keen.
Further down the Coast we hiked up to view both the Franz and Fox Glaciers. The glaciers are pretty impressive sights to behold. I was in awe of the blue colours and the sheer dirtiness of the ice. Oh and of these warning signs. Aren't they great?
The next day, Derek walked on the Fox Glacier, while I spent the day quietly reading and exploring the rugged coast line.
Further days: Queenstown, Milford Sound and a big arse drive to Dunedin
We decided we wanted to make it to Milford Sound, so after Derek's day of prancing around on a glacier, I drove to Queenstown. It was horrible being back in the middle of a flashy town with loud youth driving around and visiting the bars with music blaring.
Leaving early in the morning, we drove over to Milford Sound - yet another drive which had my mouth open in awe at the spectacular views.
We took a cruise out to the Tasman sea and got completely soaked under the waterfall on the way back. Those waterfalls are POWERFUL!
Derek wanted a look at the Homer Tunnel area so we parked in the carpark ... with three keas hanging out looking pretty damn cute but pesky. Sure enough, whilst we were off walking, two keas took an interest in our rental car's rubber seals. Awesome.
Gunn's camp is a camping ground on the mainland side of the Homer Tunnel. 8km down a gravel road you come across the cutest campground ever. It has little cabins for sleeping in that look straight out of the 1930's. The generator goes out at 10am (so lights out!) but candles were provided. Despite the sunny weather we were advised to get a cabin instead of tenting. Our cabin could fit a bunk bed with a small table beside it. It was so tiny and so cute! Lucky we took the cabin because at about 2am, the wind came up and the rain poured down. Typical Fiordland.
The area has some walks around it, and a pretty waterfull and a 1000 year old Beech (?) tree that you can climb up inside. From the road it also has a pretty defined face of the Green Man in it.
We left Gunn's camp at 1pm and drove to Dunedin via the southern scenic road.
Its almost the end of the world down there.
That's the extent of our WestCoast adventure. I went home to spend four crazy days with my parents, two aunts and Oma before heading home to go to Camp A Low Hum.
It's been over a month since I got back but I just wanted something up on the web for all you interested people out there.
