Hokitika

We left the mountains to stay one night on the West coast. We are very lucky at the moment with our planning. Another cyclone, Gabrielle, is close to hitting the North island and there is rain and wind pretty much everywhere except on the West Coast of the South Island, all thanks to the big Southern Alps ridge line.
On the road to the West coast we saw a sign for the longest suspension bridge in New Zealand, we could not miss this and went for a little walk in the upper Buller Gorge. It was cute and we saw New Zealand fanciest pigeon the Kereru.

After a short drive we spied the sea and finally arrived back on the coast where we made a quick stop at a view point for sandwiches. The different blues in the sea are just wonderful. A bit further south we stopped at 'pancake rocks', they say that these rock look like stacks of pancakes but we couldn't really see it. You can be the judge thanks to the pictures. It was the first site in New Zealand where we saw a crowd of tourists, lot of cars, vans and some buses. We still managed to enjoy the view without problems!

Finally we arrive at our destination for the night the beach town of Hokitika. A cute little town that has apparently good restaurants and cafes but as we are Sunday, there is only one restaurant open. It was very busy but we enjoyed a nice restaurant meal. This was also the first place in our trip that we could watch the sun set on the sea! And what a sunset, amazing colours.

Next day and we headed in land slightly to explore Hokitika Gorge, a short walk along the Gorge and across the two bridges which give stunning views of the unnatural looking milky turquoise waters. Years of glacial waters grinding down the rocks into a fine powder. We dipped our feet in the water but as it flows right off the glacier it was very very cold. Nice for soothing our mosquito bites but we didn't dare go all the way in.

Hokitika was always meant to be a lit stop on the long drive down the west coast but we were enchanted by the quaint little town and magical surroundings. Very happy we took the time to see it.Read more