Hokitika to Canterbury Plains

After ten days of camping, we were eager to splurge on staying in a city campground in Hokitika, a nice little town on the west coast.

Main Street, Hokitika. A typical Kiwi town in many ways, but with unusually wide roads.

The weary travelers, freshly showered and enjoying a proper dinner of fish, roasted veggies and focaccia from a local bakery.

As it was Friday night, we decided to go out and visit the local art house cinema. The building used to be a big bank and now the main lobby has been set up with a large projector, a little wine and candy bar, and several rows of very comfortable leather counches and chairs to curl up on. We watched a BBC film, a political comedy that was pretty entertaining.

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From Hokitika, our plan was to head east into Arthur's Pass for an overnight hike to a hut in the mountains. Our plans were thwarted, however, by forecasts of snow, avalanches, and 70 mph winds in the area. So we drove straight through Arthur's Pass and from our campground on the other side, we looked back to see this:



The highlight of our drive through the mountains was getting to see a kea in action. The kea, as you'll remember from the Nelson Lakes post, is the alpine parrot that is known for its cheeky behavior. We got to experience that firsthand when we encountered a kea at a scenic lookout and it immediately began tearing at everything robber or plastic on dear Murple. You see him in this picture ripping at the duct tape that holds down our otherwise rattling radio antennae. We did our best to shoo him away, but he didn't seem at all concerned with us.

Very cheeky indeed!

The winds were so fierce that night that it was the first and only time that Brett decided to forgo his usual sleeping arrangements and sleep in the van with us.

Journaling in comfort

It is worth mentioning Brett's usual camping situation, as it was quite original. He brought a hammock-tent that is strung between two trees, and according to him is comfortable and warm. Here it is at a lake on the west coast:

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We stopped a couple of places in the Canterbury plains west of Christchurch that are now famous for being used in the Narnia films.

Louisa, on a very windy day

Massive limestone boulders covered this hillside

West Coast

We took two days to cross the mountains through Haast Pass before dropping down onto the stunning west coast, with its lush rain forests (some parts receive more than 15 ft of rain a year), jagged snow-covered mountain ranges, and driftwood-dotted beaches.

Brett and us at Knight's Point

We stumbled across a wonderful treat at Bruce's Bay as we drove north. Seeing a number of campervans pulled off the side of the road, we too decided to stop and see what the attraction was. We found thousands of little rock and driftwood shrines built along a quarter-mile stretch of highway; many of the rocks had names, dates, and pictures drawn on them and some of the wood pieces had been roughly carved. We wandered around for a while, reading the different inscriptions from travelers from various countries -- Brazil, China, the U.S., Germany, Japan, Australia, and many, many others. Naturally, we added one of our own, using a pen to write our names on a smooth, white stone and placed it in the midst of this impromptu gallery.

This is just a tiny section of the shrines


We loved this friendly looking driftwood monster

We stayed for two nights at a free (!) campground on Gillespies' Beach, which is set on the edge of a large lagoon, marshlands, and a very dense rain forest...and only about 15 miles from the Fox Glacier.

The view from the beach at sunset, looking east toward the Southern Alps, including Mt. Cook and Mt. Tasman

We were blessed with a very nice day for a hike to nearby Galloway Beach for a picnic lunch and a visit to the seal colony there. According to the map at the trailhead, the trail started by crossing the lagoon by bridge. It turned out that the "bridge" only spans the parts of the lagoon that are more than knee deep, the rest of the time you are apparently expected to wade through the standing water. Unfortunately, Louisa, who was leading the way, miscalculated the depth of the water and ended up with sopping wet boots and socks. It was not so bad on such a warm day, though it was quite squishy!

Louisa attempting to squeeze as much water out of her boots as possible. As a side note, the boots did recover and were fully dried in a few days


Sean on the "trail"

Louisa and Brett on the bridge. As you can see, he and Sean learned from Lou's mistake and saved their footwear from the same wet fate as hers.

From the beach, we drove about 20 minutes the next day, through farmland and rain forest, to the terminal end of the Fox Glacier.

The Fox in the distance


The terminal end of the glacier, as seen from the trail

Later that day, we drove an hour north to see the Franz Josef Glacier as well.

The Franz Josef. Both glaciers are retreating and you can see in this photo where, for some years, there was a lake formed by melting glacial ice.

The glacier carved out this deep valley and the floor is still covered by rock and pools of water tinted blue by the famous glacier sediment

A small river runs out from under the terminal end of the Franz Josef. It is prone to sudden floods and course changes.

Christchurch to Lake Hawea

As we mentioned before, we had a visitor for the first half of November; Sean's friend Brett flew out from Tucson for a two-week mini-tour of the South Island. We met him in Christchurch on the 3rd and after a day of sights in the city, we headed west into mountain country.

One of Christchurch's many trolleys, stopped for a moment on a corner of Cathedral Square in the historic downtown.

Johnson's General Store, one of our favorite finds in Christchurch, run by the older gentleman you see in the background who has had the store there for over 50 years. It doesn't seem like much has changed in that time, and it is packed with quirky imports primarily from Britain, but including treats like boxes of Turkish delight and local jam.

Though slightly hidden by clouds,...this was our first real sighting of Mt. Cook, New Zealand's highest peak, at the edge of Lake Pukaki.


An unbelievably picturesque valley we stopped to admire on our way to a campsite in Temple Valley

We stayed two nights in Temple Valley, where we did a day hike through a river valley to a snowy mountain-ringed valley (known as a cirque). The hike began and ended with a river crossing, with our pants rolled up and our boots in hand. Luckily, the day was quite warm so the snow melt water was more refreshing than painful.

We were thrilled to find that it was much drier in the central part of the country (in the rain shadow of the Southern Alps) and we enjoyed several days of perfect Arizona-worthy dry weather.

Look, it's not so different after all! We all felt at home in Lindis Pass

We reveled in the warm, dry weather camping at Lake Hawea, north of Wanaka. One of the most remarkable characteristics of the lake was that its beach was covered in smooth, flat, round stones perfect for skipping. None of us had ever had much luck with skipping before, but here the rocks seemed to have a mind of their own and we were pros in no time.

Lake Daniells Track

From Nelson Lakes we drove south to the Marble Hill campground, which turned out to be so beautiful we spent nearly a week there. Nothing out of the ordinary for New Zealand, of course, just a beautiful river valley surrounded by vibrant bush clad hills rising to snow-capped peaks.

We camped under this towering old beech

We did another little backpacking trip from Marble Hill, hiking to Lake Daniells, where we spent two nights in a big hut there that we had all to ourselves. The trail was pretty easy and flat through the valley so we were able to really appreciate the little things along the way.

A mouse on the path. Probably a cousin of the one who took up residence in our van while we were at the lake

We especially loved the little robins with their big, black eyes, puffed out breasts, and skinny legs.

Again Lou goes for the camouflage look, this time blending in with the mineral coated hillside.

A little glimple of the Sluice Box, a short stretch of river squeezed between narrow, high bank, and turned an incredible shade of green.

In front of Lake Daniells, with all our gear

It rained the first night. This is almost the same view, but we thought it looked cool with the low clouds at dusk.

It turned out that our hike back from the lake coincided with the Dept. of Conservation’s planned day to do a massive drop of poison bait for possums over the whole area. We were woken up in the morning by the arrival of a helicopter in the grassy area between the cabin and the lake. Then, as we neared the trailhead, we were surprised to come across the scene pictured above. There were three helicopters circling the area from 8am to 8pm. Trippy.

Nelson Lakes

Lake Rotoiti – On a windy day the normally glass-like waters were transformed into white-capped waves.

Our next destination was the Nelson lakes region, specifically Lake Rotoiti around which we planned to do an overnight hike. After a day preparing our things, we said goodbye to our cozy little home (we’ve grown quite attached to our purple Murple) and headed off along the lakeside track.

We made it to the Dept. of Conservation hut by lunch time and picked out our bunks for the night. It ended up being quite a social event as we were soon joined by about 14 other people, with whom we shared good food, conversation, and a toasty wood fire.

We also got to know this kea, a chicken-sized parrot that lives in alpine and sub-alpine environments. Apparently the kea is one of the smartest birds in the world and is well known for its mischievous nature and the tricks it seems to enjoy playing on hikers and campers. We heard stories of them eating boots left outside tents, tearing the weather-stripping from car windows, shredding tents, and flying off with socks sitting out to dry!

On day two of our trek, we were faced with the choice between fording a small river and adding three extra hours to our hike by going to the swing bridge upstream. At first we were a little daunted by the river, but then a middle-aged kiwi couple and their little girl showed up and we decided to follow their lead. We took off our shoes and socks and rolled our pants up as high as we could before stepping into the ice cold water (snow-melt from the mountains in the distance). It was a painful exercise, but after toweling our feet dry on the opposite bank, we felt invigorated and our feet warmed up in no time. Sorry we don’t have pictures of the actual crossing, but the camera was safely stowed in a waterproof bag in Sean’s pack…just in case!

The trail crossed several old avalanche fields like this one

This is a close up shot of the trunk of a red beech tree. It is covered with a thick layer of black mold fungus, which doesn’t hurt the tree and in fact provides the foundation for a very important food cycle in the forest. The mold provides a home for certain insects, including the honeydew scale that converts the beech sap into the little droplets you see in the picture. The sugar-rich liquid, called honeydew, provides food for many birds, bats, lizards, insects, and for the black mold itself.

The kaka. As we were walking we came upon three of these gorgeous birds playing and feeding in the trees.

Abel Tasman 2

We've now been traveling with Sean's friend, Brett, for the past week and half, starting from Christchurch, and making a loop over to Wanaka, the Westcoast, Arthur's Pass and then back to Christchurch. We're still about a week from Christchurch but wanted to update the blog with a few of the trips we made before Brett arrived. In another week or so, we'll update on this amazing trip we're having with Brett!

Some highlights from October:

A view of the lush forest of Abel Tasman from a high point on the trail

After exploring the Abel Tasman inland tracks, we headed to the northern coast of the reserve where we braved the rain to do a full day trek through the rain forest to Separation Point where we were rewarded with close up views of the seal colony there! Standing at the lighthouse on the point jutting far out into the sea, dividing the Golden Bay from the Tasman bay, you got the feeling of being somewhere near the edge of the world.

The track often descended onto the beach and you had the chance to walk along the golden sand and blue waters.

In full rain gear (pants & jacket) Lou was playing chameleon

The lighthouse at the tip of Separation Point, we followed a side trail that let us hike all the way out to the edge.

Seals! We were freezing in the wicked wind that was blowing off the water, but these guys looked like they were sunbathing in Mexico

A cute seal lounging nearby who we watched for a long time as he lolled around on the rock, scratching his back

A Shag resting on the rocks

Us on the point