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010 Jackson Bay and the Haast Pass to Wanaka

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  Monday, February 8 As far south-west, as the road goes, lies the sleepy little fishing village of Jackson Bay. It faces the Tasman Sea to the north and is backed by the majestic Southern Alps. We were inspired to go there by a fellow motorhomer who told us he'd eaten the best meal of blue cod in his life there. So we followed a mostly straight road enjoying a mix of scrubby farmland, trees and bush (creating a very English country lane canopy over us), and wind-damaged, dead and dying wood stuck and prickled and spiked with the standing black and grey splinters strewn all over its hollows and hills. (Blanche Baughn, from A Bush Section ) After 32kms we reached the Cray Pot cafe, about the size of a shipping container where, somehow, customers piled in one end and the owner cooked at the other. The blue cod lived up to it's reputation, the drinks were hot, and and the helping of chips so generous we could not finish them. We went for a walk along the wharf where once stood ...
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009 Mountains and Sandflies

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  February 7, 2021 Yesterday when we arrived at Franz Josef it was very cool and overcast so the little settlement seemed rather unappealing and we tucked into our camping space and hunkered down for the night. This morning we decided to stock up at the local Four Square. As we came around the corner in brilliant sunshine we had a whoa! wait! what???? moment because right in our faces was a mountain with snow all over it. Yesterday, it had been completely obscured. Cool start to the day! South of the town, we walked part of the Ka Roimata o Hine Hukatere track ('tears of snow') to get closer to the Franz Josef Glacier which was well worth the effort. Heading further south we had lunch at Lake Mathieson, then took a side road to see if we could get a glimpse of Fox Glacier/Te Moeka o Tuawe ('the bed of Tuawe'). It was breathtaking and sent me into a fervour of messaging my friend MJ who was on the same 1968 school trip to the South Island to try and ascertain which of th...
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008 Tree Tops and Dinosaurs

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February 6, 2021 Black clouds, cool weather and shrouded hills greeted us this morning, but no rain, not yet anyway, though there is some pending early next week. We drove 15 minutes south of Hokitika to the Tree Tops Walk a gigantic steel walkway 20 metres above the forest floor. It was an exhilarating stroll above the mature West Coast rainforest featuring rimu and kamahi trees among many others. With our hearts aflutter and adrenalin high (neither of us is 'heights' happy) we climbed to the top of the Hokitika Tower - 47 metres up to the viewing platform. The view was great and well worth the angst to be able to see across richly diverse forest foliage to Lake Mahinapua, the Southern Alps (only just), and the Tasman Sea. Driving on after a coffee break, we travelled south through magnificent forests and flat, scrubby long-land cattle farms in stark contrast to the mountains to our left. And everywhere, colour: wide expanses of glacial icy-blue waters sided by grey shingle ba...
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007 Shantytown

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  February 4, 2021 It all seems fun at Shantytown, but there were very few women at the goldfields and those that did venture forth to join their husbands lived in challenging circumstances. I was determined to pop a wee bit of womanly charm into the place today, which I think I managed. In any case, we both enjoyed our morning very much. Inspired by the West Coast gold rushes of the 1860s, Shantytown boasts over 30 shops and buildings faithfully recreating a New Zealand 19th century mining town. We dressed up and had our photos taken; rode on the steam train through native rainforest - (an L508, known as Gerty); oohed and aahed at the old sawmill; and bought lunch before we moved on. This morning, we noticed the the driver side front tyre of the van was looking a bit flat and quite worn. We weren't sure if we'd find a 'truck' tyre place further south, so, after some discussion decided to go back to the Bridgestone workshop in Greymouth to have all the tyres inspected....
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006 Pancake Rocks

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February 2, 2021  We woke late this morning to birdsong and the screech and clack of cicadas in a haze of as-yet unburnt-off mist. But the sun was strong and already hot and promising another stunning day. A cart had drawn up alongside the vans and was selling huge pancakes so we decided to have one and split it between us. Yum, and so appropriate for where we were heading next...Punakaiki, the Pancake Rocks. "The rocks are our ancestors, my dear, they are the first" , someone wrote, "from them, all the myriad forms have generated." And so it seemed after our drive to Dolomite Point on the edge of Paparoa National Park. Here we found the world-class, world-famous, brilliantly presented Punakaiki Rocks and blowholes. Puna means a spring (blowholes); kaiki means to be put in a heap (pancake rocks). They were formed over 30 million years ago, bizarre pancake stacked coastal formations sitting on the shoreline of the Tasman Sea. They are constantly eroding, forming ca...
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005 Cape Foulwind

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February 1, 2021 "A cape of foul winds" was what Captain James Cook named the rocky cape in 1770 (now known as Cape Foulwind) after his ship Endeavour was blown quite a distance from shore in atrocious weather. Yesterday, it was picture perfect under blue skies and brilliant sunshine as we took the path to the lighthouse and delighted in panoramic views of the Tasman Sea. I was particularly interested in the old granite quarries (called Siberia by the miners) because that's where my great grandfather had worked and had a serious accident. It would have been pretty challenging work, blasting and quarrying that stone, sending it by purpose-built railway back to Westport to construct the Harbour breakwater. Albert had set a charge, but it didn't ignite. When he went to see what had happened, it blew up, he was badly injured and extremely lucky to have lived to tell the tale. We drove further south along the coast to Tauranga Bay to see if we could spot any seals or li...
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