20.-23.04.2018 West coast of the South Island

I travelled with the Irish guys for a few days as we had approximately the same plan and I was really happy to leave my bag in the trunk, not carrying it with me everywhere I go. After breakfast tea, we went to see Blue Pools, which was more of a brown-ish green at the time, but still nice. We then went to the nebulous Haast Pass Lookout and afterwards, at Knight’s Point, we saw the German girl we met at the campsite last night again.

Afterwards, we drove to Fox Glacier, from where we walked to a nice lookout about 350m away from the glacier toe. Going closer would have been too dangerous because of massive blocks of ice coming lose and crashing down unexpectedly. The walk through the valley the glacier formed was quite interesting, debris on the sides with the occasional waterfall coming down and joining the glacial stream(s) in the middle.

 

We spent the night in a hostel in Fox Glacier (village) and got complimentary tomato soup in a cup, the hot showers were more than needed as well.

For the next day, Seamus and Adam had booked a helicopter tour on Franz Josef Glacier way in advance, which was then unfortunately cancelled because of the stormy weather. Instead, we drove on further north, to Lake Matheson. We did a nice 1 hour walk, the bits of rain from time to time didn’t actually bother us – however, they for sure didn’t do the mirror-likeness of the lake any good

Then we did the small hike to Tatare Tunnels, a cave-like structure with a little stream going through it. We took off our shoes and walked through the ice cold, ankle deep water. We went in there a bit and even saw a few glowworms on the walls, it was definitely worth freezing our feet off. Afterwards, we made a short stop in Hokitika, the most interesting thing there being the “Hokitika” sign on the beach – beyond that it’s just a small town with a nice atmosphere and lots of Jade stores.

That night, we stayed at an amazing hostel in Greymouth, called Global Village – it had art from all over the world on the walls, they were selling items from I-don’t-know-where in Africa and it was simply a really nice hostel in general.We had dinner and some wine there and then watched a strange New Zealand movie, afterwards a bit of Lord of the Rings (we had to).

The next day, we drove a bit inland again, to Arthur’s Pass. It took us about 2h over Scott’s Track/Route to reach Avalanche Peak and about the same time down, since it was quite a climb – Adam had hurt his knee some time back and had to use a cane and besides, we were not in a hurry. I absolutely loved the track, especially the parts where you had to use your whole body to get up a huge rock and I was positively exhausted at the top. The view was worth it all though, it was amazing.

Afterwards, we took a coffee at the shelter in Arthur’s Pass village, then walked a bit to get to Devil’s Punchbowl Falls – lots of stairs going up and down and up again. On the way back to the hostel, we wanted to get some wine and even though Adam and Seamus are both around 30, I had to go and get it, since the store wouldn’t give them any alcohol without a passport.

Next morning, we drove to Pancake Rocks: limestone formations due to different layers in the stone that aren’t eroding at the same level. The walkway was very nicely done, a path winding along the shore with stone boundaries on the sides. We then did Truman Track (just a stroll through the forest to the beach) in Punakaiki.

At Cape Foulwind (not kidding) we saw a fur seal colony chilling on the rocks and a nice black sand beach, I was told it looks exactly like the west coast of Ireland there (which means Adam and Seamus weren’s impressed). We also found some funny-looking blue mushrooms on the way.

The drive to Richmond was very very pretty and at the K-Mart there, I finally bought my own tent: it cost me a whole of $12 and is certainly the investment with the best cost-benefit ratio I made on this trip. My first night in the tent was uneventful, I didn’t get wet except for a few drops from the morning dew and there’s exactly enough space for me and my bag in there. We set it up next to Adam and Seamus’ tent at a campsite in Marahau, about 5 minutes from the start of Abel Tasman National Park.

PS. I’m still hoping that I’ll get a proper picture of the seal colony from Seamus, he had his camera with him – but afaik he’s not home yet, so that might still take a while.