When last I left you I was headed to the Hokitika beach in the hopes of finding some raw greenstone (Jade). I must admit, I didn’t try very hard or go to many beaches. From the library I walked about town and collected some useful information from the DoC (Department of Conservation) office; the receptionist was really nice and helpful. Afterwards, I FINALLY bought groceries!! Yikes, you don’t even want to know what I was living on – things that were non-perishable and left in the car from when mom was traveling with me (and some of THAT was still left over from when I moved in with Dave – almost 6 months ago!!!!). Only after replenishing my stocks did I head to the beach. I put my tent out to dry while I ate the best lunch I’d had in days. Then I walked the beach a bit. I did take one stone away with me, but I doubt the green color in it (mixed with white quartz) is jade. It’s a pretty stone anyway.
Before leaving town, I hit the library with my laptop to use their free WIFI. I was going to work on uploading some pics to this blog, but a computer crash brought me back to my priorities and I took care of some much needed business before going to play in the sun. Sorry – the sun trumps blog upload when you’re on the rainy west coast :-p
I had read about the Hokitika gorge and it’s uniquely colored water – but I thought it might be a bit out of the way for such a short walk. However, the DoC lady highly recommended it and said it was only ½ an hour away. So, I drove the fifty or so right cornered roads through farmland until I reached the gorge. Wow – was it worth the detour! A lovely swing bridge put me right over the very blue river and a short walk down the hill let me put my feet in the ice cold water. I climbed around on the white rocks for a bit, but the sand flies (biting gnats) eventually got to me and I headed back.
From the gorge I headed towards my intended camp site on Lake Kaniere. On my way I stopped for a good walk through the woods. A bit of uphill and I came to a lookout on stilts. It was nothing spectacular, but quite a nice overlook of the lake. I didn’t have time to do the entire walk, so I headed back to the car after the lookout.
The uphill walk had gotten my body temperature up, so, despite the fact that I had missed the hottest part of the day, I was ready to take a dip in the lake in order to wash up for the first time since leaving Christchurch. When I came to Dorothy falls I couldn’t help but think of my cousin and his affinity for putting his head under waterfalls. I thought how crazy it would be to take my bath in the waterfall pool. I laughed to myself and then walked down the short trail to the lake. Compared to the ice cold water of the falls, the lake water was like a warm bath! I seriously considered taking my dip in the lovely, easily accessible, and WARM lake – but it didn’t make as good a story ;-)
So – I changed into some togs (swim clothes) and headed back to the falls. I was a little worried about what people would think if they saw me, but figured they would just think I was nuts (which ws what I was what I was thinking of myself anyway! My first thought when I put my bare foot in the water was “Ah, that’s not TOO bad”. Then, as I waded in, my next thought was “what the Heck are you doing!!!! This is stupid!” I didn’t figure it would be good enough to get in the pool, I knew I had to actually swim over to the waterfall and get under it. I finally got control 
of my breath in the frigid water, but an irrational fear built up in me as I got closer to the falls. Was the water going to hurt? Would it have enough force to push me under? How deep did this pool actually go? I started going under the waterfall from behind, where less water fell down. I got all the way under and then swam out. I had done it!!!! Then, I remembered the wash cloth in my hand (no, I didn’t have soap! That would be pollution!). As I swam back to the rocky shore, I scrubbed myself clean of the many days’ grime. Getting out was way easier than I thought it would be! Since there was no breeze it was much warmer out of the water than in. So much so, that I decided to take a picture of me – soaking wet – with the waterfall behind (my entrance picture hadn’t gone off for some reason, and my being wet would be better proof that I’d actually done it). I then went back to the car to dry off and change – the sand flies were much less prominent near the car!Whew – feeling clean, refreshed, and pretty darn proud of myself, I headed off to set up camp. While I didn’t see any at the campsite I chose, the first few sites I drove past had pukekos running around everywhere. I thought it quite funny to go from wekas to pukekos at my campsites. After getting my tent set up, I returned to town. I was going to drive down the coast to check out the beaches at low tide – for greenstone. However, I never came across any obvious access points. The DoC lady that recommended the beaches must have local knowledge of how to get past the private property fences. So, shoving aside the feeling that I had wasted gas (money) I set back towards town to catch the sunset instead. It was a beautiful sunset, really becoming dramatic after the sun was below the ocean!!!
Before heading back to camp, I stopped by the glowworm dell. A short, short walk uphill brought me (and many other visitors) to a lovely little fern grotto aglow with the greenish tint of the worms. I tried to take a couple pictures with my tripod – but I didn’t have the time necessary to really fidget with the settings. When I had first arrived, other people were taking pictures too and I realized just how much glow the digital displays put off (ha ha, it really didn’t occur to me until now that I could have used the viewfinder instead of the display – duh!!). Not wanting to be one of the rude people creating excess glow – I only took 2 pictures, neither of which came out more than black.Saturday 28 February
I didn’t sleep poorly at my campsite, but I didn’t sleep really well either – I kept getting woken up by shrill bird calls. Sometimes they reminded me of the kiwis I’d heard up north, but sometimes they sounded more like a chirp. Despite getting out of my tent and trying to locate one that sounded really, really close, I never did figure out what I was hearing. Ha ha, while trying to go back to sleep after that foray, I heard two birds talking to each other. I wondered if it was two pukekos (also known as swamp hens), since they sounded a lot like clucking/huffing chickens.
I didn’t get a horribly early start to the morning, but I didn’t want to be too late either as I wanted to get a bit of walking in before the rains set in. I took half an hour to walk down to the lake before heading into town and checking my e-mail. I arrived just as the library was opening and checked the weather again – yep rain forecast for 3 days! I counted myself lucky that the rain they forecast for that day hadn’t started. I set off for a free DoC camp with the hope of catching a few walks before hunkering down for a couple days of wet weather. There had been several short walks I was interested in checking out, but the imminent rain meant I had to choose. I picked the Harihari coastal walkway – as it was long enough to give me some exercise (listed as a 3 hour return) and because the brochure said it was one of the most beautiful walks on the west coast (how could I miss that?).
I was quite disappointed when, after driving kilometers down a gravel road, I came to a road closed sign. Thanks to “Wilson” (the name of the GPS mom and dad gave me for Christmas), I knew I was near the trailhead. I decided to pack up some lunch and see why the road was closed. While I was packing a couple of guys drove up. They were talking and taking pictures of the washed out road when I reached them. Oh – this is why the road is closed, it doesn’t even exist anymore! The river had taken out all but the shoulder of the road! I think they both worked for DoC, but only one was residing in Hokitika. I ended up tagging along with them on the trail. By the time we reached the beach section of the trail, I was quite glad I was with people that had done it before. I’m not sure what I would have done by myself – 
turned around or kept going. The brochure had said the walk was best at low tide, but one guy reckoned you could still squeeze by at high. Wow – and squeezed by we did. The waves from the incoming tide were crashing on the rocks with enough force to occasionally send spray into our faces. We then climbed to the top of a lookout. It had a “Danger – trail closed” sign on it, but the Hokitika DoC guy said that was just because some geologist said the rock would “eventually” erode. Ha ha ha, so over the sign we went. The view was amazing though! You could see quite a few of the southern alps, the wetland below, and over the ocean. While the clouds were still high and didn’t appear to hold rain, it started to sprinkle. So, down we went. Here again I was quite glad to have some locals to follow. The high tide and high river flow and brought the water up and onto this section of the trail. I followed the guys through thick bunches of wild flax and a bit of gorse. We jumped over puddles and on rocks in the hopes of avoiding full foot soakage. We successfully navigated our way past the estuary and back to the eroded road. Here we said our goodbyes and went our separate ways – me towards the glaciers and they back to Hokitika.
I drove to Franz Josef Glacier without stopping; I was still hoping to beat most of the rain. I did a couple of the walks in the area, including the one that takes you closest to the terminal face of the glacier. It had been years since I’d seen a glacier, so it was pretty neat to see one again. 
I found it slightly less impressive than those I’d seen in Alaska, but that’s probably because they had set the boundry up so far from the face of the glacier – for safety reasons. I suppose it really is hard to top seeing the calving glaciers of Glacier Bay though! It was still a good view, despite the rain ;-) On the way back from the glacier, I ran across some people with cameras pointed into a tree. A wood pigeon was happily eating away in the tree – so I too took pictures and video. I’m quite a glad, as people saw me with my camera pointed to a tree, they stopped to look to – and got their cameras out!As the rain started becoming more steady, I headed towards Gillespies Beach – the DoC free camp. I figured I could set up my tent and hang out for a day or two while the rain passed. However, when I arrived at the carpark I found that the tent sites were really just newly planted grass sites, fenced off from cars. So – to set up my tent, would have to take everything out into the rain, set it up, and then haul my bedding through the rain too (rather than just transferring it from my car door to my tent door). So, I decided to try sleeping my car again. Afterall, I didn’t have a colony of ants to avoid this time!
Sunday 1 March
I actually slept pretty well in my car! There were several campervans in the parking lot, and a few other cars. I was surprised to see that some people had set their tent up on the gravel parking lot! Ugh, uncomfortable and soggy – the parking lot was not absorbing the water well. I was still awake when the last people arrived at 11, headlights illuminating everything as they figured out where they wanted to park. After that, I slept well until 10am!!! That was the latest I’d slept in ages! I woke to rain!
I had planned on leaving the car sometime during the day to try to get to the seal colony, 1.5 hours down the beach. When the rain let up at 11, I decided to give it a go. I hid in an old gold mining tunnel (used to access the beach at all tide levels) during a bit of the rain, but finally gave up and continued on my way. While I was wading up the small stream that was the trail, I ran into a lady coming down the trail. She told me that the trail to the seal colony was blocked by high streams – to high to cross easily. I didn’t take much convincing – I had seen her leave about an hour before me! So, she and I chatted while we walked back to the parking lot. I pegged her for a German from her accent, but would never have guessed her job! I’ve never met a perfumer before!!!! Wow! We had a chat about that – she started as a toxicologist but then everyone told her she had a good nose and it went from there. She laughed when I told her that it made me think of the movie (Perfume). She assured me she was not a serial killer!The rest of the day was quite boring – but not bad. I basically had a pajama day! I hung out in my little nest of a car and entertained myself: solitaire (with not much cheating), trimming my nails, finishing my vampire romance (argh, now I need the next one!), doing sudoku, and attempting to write this blog. However, I didn’t get far on the blog, and everything I wrote has pretty much been written in this stint. :-) Ha ha ha
Monday 2 March
I woke up early on this morning. I was hoping that the forecast was still accurate and that today would be the beginning of a clear spell. I wanted to get as much scenery taken in during the good weather as possible, so I started my car and headed out. On my way back towards Fox glacier, I stopped at Lake Matheson. Apparently this lake is semi-famous for it’s reflections of Mount Cook and the other mountains. The clouds were still hanging on the mountains, but I still got some great reflection pictures!
I planned on checking out the Fox glacier next, but both access roads were closed :-( Apparently a rock slide was blocking the parking lot on one road; I’m not sure what the deal with the other road was. So, I just headed on down the coast, hoping I’d be able to camp in the Haast pass with a sunset view over the southern alps.
I had a few more stops on my way to Haast. Bruce Bay was a nice little beach, but the walk to Monro Beach was better. Despite the definite lack of any fiordland crested penguins (they breed July to December I think), the beach was still beautiful – beautiful rocks on both ends of the sandy beach. I didn’t stay long though, I wanted to get back to my car and air everything out in the sun that was shining.
Unfortunately, as soon as I left the Monro beach walk carpark, I had rain hitting my windshield!!! So, by the time I reached the Knights Point viewpoint any thoughts of airing my car in the sun were definitely out. I hopped out and took a couple pictures, but the sideways rain kept hitting my lens so I got back in my car and had a bit of lunch.
My next stop was Ships creek – where I had a nice little walk around a sand dune lake. The sun had come back out, and so had the sand flies! It paid not to stand too long in one place! Which was quite annoying, because from one vantage point I could see something in the water. I decided it must be seals, since they weren’t regularly surfacing like I’d seen dolphins do. 
However, once I reached the beach I could see that they were dolphins. I’m not sure what species, they appeared to have rounded dorsal fins. I never did get a really good look – I only ever saw a couple black fins come out of the water and disappear again. They didn’t surface frequently either, making it hard to track them. I eventually lost sight – and the sand flies got to me – so I headed back to the car (careful not to leave the door open to long, as the sand flies will flock in!From Ships Creek it was straight to Haast. I was really disappointed to find that the clouds still had not lifted off the mountains. I went to the DoC vistor’s center and checked out the forecast – today was supposed to be “clearing”. I wasn’t sure what to do, so I watched the DoC video on the area, bought $20 worth of gas, and headed down away from the pass for a long ways. I decided to check out the “freedom camping” at Neil’s beach I had heard about. It took a massive detour down a dead end road first – to check out the “Red Hills at the Cascade River viewpoint”. It was pretty cool – the high mineral content of the soil causes the red coloration, and also prevents plants from growing on them! (hmmm, the red didn’t really come out in the photo – so I’ll put a picture of the river valley on here instead).
I didn’t have any luck at Neil’s Beach – a no camping sign was posted. I decided maybe I would camp on the pass and maybe luck out with a clear sunrise? However, on my way back up the road I remembered the Holiday Park I had passed. I nearly missed the sign, but bought a tent site at Haast Beach. I look forward to using their shower tomorrow morning (my first since Christchurch, waterfalls not included). I have been charging and using my laptop in the lounge, and charging my camera batteries as well. It’s now 11pm and the lounge is empty! I hope to get this blog posted, and updated, sometime in a couple days – probably from Queenstown, where I might treat myself to a hostel. I have several vague plans in mind, but since the weather on the other side of the pass is so drastically different than the weather here, I haven’t been able to get hold of a forecast. So – I’m not sure what I’ll be doing in a couple days. I hope for good weather for a hike or two.
I did, however, catch one last sunset on the west coast……
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