Impressions

We decided to stay one more night in this quiet place by the sea. On a long trip you need a place to rest a little. Plus – a big storm came both islands and we had strong winds and rains throughout the night. But the day was warm and not rainy at all. We even saw some sun. So after working with computers for a while in the morning we drove to Hokitika Gorge and its Swingbridge (the charge for the previous bridge by Murchison was $5 NZ, this one was free):

After the night’s rain the river was very lightly grey. And very strong:

The path to it was through the rainforest:

Then we returned a little and drove around lake Kaniere. On the way by the lake there were Dorothy Falls. The water falling from them was amazingly orange:

Ant the stream afterwards was unusually orange:

There was dense rainforest around the lake. And the lake looked pretty:

I tried to swim there, but it was too cold for me…

But by the shores I saw the same plants I admired in Marahau by Tasman Park. they look super exotic to me, and in Lithuanian I call them “stipenos” which would be some kind of analog  of “anorexic” in English:

They have very hard leaves and don’t remind wetland dwellers…They look more fit for a desert. But they don’t care and grow here where it is really wet.

We also stopped at Rimu Lookout and the views were stunning! it doesn’t  get into one pic, it is so panoramic. The river with islands opens in all its glory:

And that is it, after that we had Fish and chips  with beer and Anrei had some good time with his PC, while I ran to the shops, admired the beauty of their creations in Green stone and then tried with no luck to find some green stone by the stormy sea:

One wave even caught me, I tried to run out of the wet, but like in a horror movie – fell down and felt helpless, shouted into the sky and then figured out that everything wasn’t so bad as I expected.

The other thing I have to mention – yes, the sand flies here are terrible. We brought two types of repellents from US, bought one here, bought some antihistamine, we are all bitten, scratching like crazy at times…But that is no news, because all the books write about it . Except you always expect that bad things are for others, they won’t bother you as much …

Some pics of Hokitika:

The Lodge where we stayed was impressive, but unluckily – there were two buses of young tourists staying the same night as us and that was not so pleasant. It would be no problem, we could stay in our rooms, but computers…We need to work with them every evening, and so we have to sit in common areas where those kids interact.  The internet was bad, someone was endlessly speaking in Dutch by Skype – so that everybody could hear every word…No, very unpleasant. My advice for myself and others – ask when you check in – is it very full, then don’t stop if it is.

A Catholic in front of our Lodge:

But today we have a reward – we are staying in Hokitika by the sea in a small house with only two French couples and can work with our PCs alone in the dining room, comfortably, quietly, fun! I don’t want to sleep tonight, such a nice environment not to be fully enjoyed:

There were dahlias on the dining table and in our room. Lots of gardens in those areas here have dahlias, it makes me happy! I used to have dahlias and I always enjoyed looking into other gardens and admiring their dahlias…

From the beginning. We stopped at the end of the main street in Westport and here is what we saw:

Those are tunas that they just unloaded from a boat…

Drove down Rt 6 south by the coast:

The coast on the way was impressive, too. very dramatic, very much like Oregon coast, only warm, no wind, just waves. Not much sun, just exactly the weather for traveling, also exactly before the rains start (which they did late tonight).

towards Punakaiki Pancake Rocks and Blowholes:

Impressive…

There we saw some dolphins swimming up to grasp for air. but they were so far away, that it was not worth straining your eyes…

After the Pancakes we drove to Greymouth – another bigger city on the shore. Walked a little in the center and here is what I liked:

We also stopped at the beach past the city, which was a little different:

It was so peaceful and quiet before tomorrows storm that we had some really good rest on those stones.

And here is the Hokitika beach where we decided to stay two nights:

Our little lodge is seen in between trees:

There were lots of driftwood and green colored stones on the coast, I couldn’t help not picking them. For obvious reasons I can’t pick driftwood which I would really want to. So at least stones…Those stones I found are not pure , my guess some droplets of jade are mixed with quartz or something  else. I didn’t find pure jade which has a distinct feel. But some people do. But some other stones on the coast were so pretty, that I don’t know how I  am gona carry my bags. I also picked  big ones and left in our hosts’ garden.  What the heck – the sea is a couple of steps away from the house, so I ran back and forth today in the evening several times.

Didn’t dare to go into the waves – they seemed too dangerous, the open sea gets deep at once and also – I bet the waves are dragging into the sea…But there were some lucky surfers. Hokitika coast has some specifics:

And that is about it, the town itself is worth not only visiting but staying – cozy, small, lots of Green jade outlets, some restaurants,  just right for vacationing. Oh, and when in got dark we drove to the Glow worm cave just in the north part of town by the road – yes, they are glowing those criters, very cute! Different than stars. On both sides of the cave which has no roof . Looks romantic! And spooky. But I can only describe it , no pics…:-)

Drove to the seashore of Motueka. Saw a ship not in use any more…

And this is the most common flower here now. it is growing like weed by property boundaries, by  roads, close to beaches but not in the wild – in towns, surrounding properties like fences:

One of the houses we see by the shoreline:

Then again figured out that they are not tending to show road signs, it is your business to figure out which road to take by the  direction, ranges of mountains or simply by intuition, which we lack, so we had to drive back and forth in Motueka and out of it until we found the right road. The road was beautiful, followed one river, than the other, based on pictures of some roads by rivers on North island – they are twin alike…maybe the surrounding mountains are an inch higher here.

When we gladly reached Murchison – a sign waited for us – they are repairing the road further and will do that for the next 4 hours…And Murchison is a tiny miners town. At least they had Info center where the lady already managed to figure out where the repair was going on and how we could spend those hours in a useful way. So we followed her advice, but first lifted our moods by consuming some local beer (from the West coast) and then drove where we were directed – to a hanging bridge:

Was it scary? – no. I was so busy taking pictures, I forgot to be scared. I think Andrei was a little bit more scared .

I also bought a ticket for gold panning (as an advice – not worth at all). They showed me how to do it in a basin by their office and then sent me to the river which was supposedly full of gold nuggets. The very first time I tried in that basin – I found a tiny gold flake in my pan. It was so exciting that I literally flew to the river with Andrei not catching up with me. All those sand flies biting like crazy, I dug sand from here and there and washed and washed it and zero result. It was so disappointing! At first I felt like in a movie where they show gold paners, and then I felt like I didn’t get the role…

So it goes, we left it in time, got to Westport and still there were some sunny hours left for enjoyment – so we got the last room in a very exotic old lodge with the walls of the corridor made of Kauri wood :

(:-)  -our room…)

and drove to the Seal colony, some 17 km away. On the way stopped to see some views:

The beach by seal colony was very inviting , lots of warmth, very flat waves spreading so far, some rocks sticking from the sea close by.

So we immersed into the salty water, a little on the cold side for us, but my parents would have enjoyed it. And went an a very comfy board walk up and arpound the rocks to see the seals. As usuall – we don’t get much luck. In addition to the very bright sun shining straight to our eyes, there were very few seals down there among the rocks:

But we took pics, etc. and then returned home.
It was not a big luck our Lodge got overfilled so there is  much noise where we a re desperately trying to get into the internet…I remember those times when we were almost alone in such lodges. Here – buses came and brought happy Kiwis and Europeans and their loud talks…

We planned to drive more and walk less today. So from Motueka we drove to a source of Riwaka river called insurgence. It is several km to the left of the main road #60 leading to Tanaka, before you start climbing the mountain. A group of ducks met us and begged for food. Which we had – we just bought a bag of Nashi pears from a garden:

Then walked a little walk up a very clean and buoyant  river to the hole where it comes from under the mountain:

The mushrooms I saw under a pine tree by parking lot were exactly what we pick in Lithuania and we call them “lepshiai” :

A drive up the mountain to the height of 791m was very windy as can be expected. The views…well, the views are wonderful here everywhere. I just started getting a feeling that very special hobbits should really live here – you have to be special and kindhearted if you are surrounded with such landscapes…

So we reached the mountain and then started descending. Evidently there is no pass here, by which I mean  – some lower part of the mountain so that cars wouldn’t need to climb so high…

And then we saw the other side – another green valley, a long one.  Tanaka was there, a rather long way towards the sea. But you could not see the sea from town. Instead we stopped at a museum and gallery where I found the needed souvenirs.  And also noticed  a very interesting shop where they knit alpaca wool sweaters and boil them to make it look like a harder fabric. And then sow really fashionable sweaters – in such a corner of the earth… Such a fashion…Such good taste…Unbelievable. The sweaters were the most beautiful I managed to see here in NZ while running through stores (always no time…). But the price looked rather steep. I think they are for movie stars and by that I guess they get them here .

Passing Tanaka we turned immediately to the left after the bridge – to Pupu Springs – another source of another  river…This was even more impressive.

It is a Tapu – a sacred place for Maori and I felt why. They are so pure and clean – that you can look at them for hours. By “they” I mean several bigger and smaller rivers which make an island and join together. Because that place has several holes in the ground and from some of them the water is coming with such a speed that the pool on top looks like it boils!

The water there is considered the cleanest in the world. Not too cold. But again – no time to immerse in it…Which can be done a little down the river.

We needed some rest to cool down and had it in the Mussel Inn by the road further.The beer there is out of this world…At least for my taste buds. Nothing can beet their beer. They produce it there because they grow hops there all around. The ones we drank were Red Deer Draught and Captain Cooker Manuka Beer -the latter is flavored with freshly picked tips of Manuka tree. It is even medicinal! I will miss it…And the food was good as always. Mussel chowder had a lot of veggies, healthy for me.

On the way from there we noticed a lot of black big birds and couldn’t believe our eyes – they were black swans with red beaks in such numbers that it leads to thinking that all the Northern hemisphere’s swans have been gathered here for wintering…It is a pity they were swimming further from the beach and we had no binoculars to get more pleasure in watching them.

After some  rest we reached the visitors center of Farewell Spit. They are deceiving there …there is usually nobody in those visitor centers here to answer questions or give advices. There is only some map on the board and some explanations. They mention about 20 min walk to the beach and I took it as a truth…We walked and we  walked through the pastures, and I got a little mad to tell the truth, because today our legs and backs are tired enough from yesterday’s 14 km walks.  Yes, the scenery is beautiful, but it seemed that they made the path almost parallel to the beach instead of going straight to the other end of the Spit to the Tasman sea.

I wanted to see it because I read  it has a lot of sand. But as you can see from the picture – that spit is really far away, by the horizon…Yes, we reached the dunes, then walked by the sea, did a loop, but it was a little too long for today…the wind was very strong, so no enthusiasm was left to play in the waves which would have refreshed us.

Coming back to Motueka took us 1h 40  mins. We are sleeping in the same motel, and tomorrow heading south-west

towards Westport on the west coast.

I can’t abstain from writing about it…My mom came from Lithuania to stay in our B&B and take care of those several guests we have during our trip. And the airline she had tickets with – Lithuanian Airlines – went bankrupt. But Lithuania didn’t care at all about the major airlines that they had. They just stopped flying people from the 16th of January. Just stopped and that was it and told they were not even returning money to their passengers. So we had to buy my Mom another ticket. Because the time was short and for other reasons we bought through two airlines: RyanAir had to take her from Kaunas to London and then Virgin Atlantic from London to Vegas. The interesting part – no airline is now flying directly from Lithuania to London, so RyanAir decided to take advantage. I think is is not only unfair but also very dishonest, disrespectful that they changed their schedule once of a sudden – from 5 pm to 8 am! And just informed passengers. But if you want to change the ticket to the next day because of their schedule change, not because of your personal preference – they charge you double, which is $150 for that! And this is the airline which is advertising itself as the cheapest flier only with the most expensive toilets.

So just have in mind – my advice is never ever book a flight with RyanAir!

So that is why my posts are late, I can’t work on them, I have to work on ticket changes, sorry…