Friday's a Canterbury Holiday so Mike took the Thursday afternoon off and we set off up to the Lewis Pass on our way to the West Coast. Just past the highest point we stopped at Maruia Springs for the night, a motel run by Japanese with good food and thermal pools down by the river. That evening we were the only people soaking in their fabulous hot pools with steam rising and tuis flying overhead and just a few sandflies around to remind us we weren't in paradise. We took our own muesli and tea with us so we could set off early in the morning.
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| The best NZ community café ever is here in Reefton, an gold and coal mining town we stopped at on the way to the west coast. The owner drives the school bus, takes people up to the mines, and does heritage tours in fancy dress as well as running the café |
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The cafe sells aprons and crazy tea cosies as well as great coffee and cakes.
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We hit the coast around Westport and turned north going up to the Karamea and the Kahurangi National Park. Before the end of the road (where the Heaphy Track begins) we turned off into the Oparara basin. It's an area of limestone, rivers and wild bush with huge dry caves. All very dark and no people when we were there. Mike loved it and went ahead gleefully: you can just see the trepidation in my face
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| Mike had a head torch with him and was keen to spot the rare cave spiders and wetas that live in these damp, dark, cold places |
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| The Oparara River was quite high as we'd had a lot of rain recently. It's stained orange/brown by the tannin in leaf mould |
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| This is the largest of the two arches, at around 40m it's very impressive |
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| We were able to climb quite far up underneath |
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| Mirror Tarn nearby was still and beautiful |
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| Moss and ferns in a hundred shades of green smother every surface |
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| The second arch is much lower but more fun to visit because you're able to climb down a hole into a cave beneath it |
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Climbing down under the arch. The river runs fast here creating little whirl pools across its surface
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| You can just see some stalagtites hanging underneath the arch |
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| Another small cave under the arch |
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On our return to the car the cutest little South Island robin flew up to us, stopped us in our tracks and hopped around our feet for 5 minutes or more. A pretty creamy white breast unlike the UK variety
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We had a lot of rain overnight in Karamea and no power in our motel that morning. We drove up to the start of the Heaphy Track, crossed the flooded Kohaihai River and did the first hour or so of the walk up to Scotts Beach
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At the start, just over the swing bridge is the Nicau loop track. Good fun walking next to the swollen river and wonderful to be back amongst Nicau palms, supplejack etc
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We walked up to Scotts Beach, as wild as it gets. Nobody else around and recent rain had gouged a huge channel through the sand. Pink granite around here creating lovely yellow sand
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| Mike looking happy but standing perilously close to the edge of the sand bank beside a very fast flowing river |
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| Back at the mouth of the River Kohaihai there's a huge spit of sand by the DOC campsite, weather looking a lot better |
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After lunch back at the Last Resort in Karamea we drove south towards Punkaiki, stopping to do a short walk up Charming Valley. The walk follows an old train track up to an early coal mining area, so there's a lot of old machinery left lying around
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| An easy walk as it's pretty flat. There was a lot of loose coal lying around too |
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| Weather clearing a little so we went down to Trueman's Beach for a last look at the wild Tasman Sea |
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| And from the stormy west coast we travelled south to Greymouth and then took the scenic route inland to Arthur's Pass going past Lake Brunner where we stopped for lunch. Weather improved all along the way so home to a warm sunny Christchurch |
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