23rd February
A misty morning on the West coast
We woke up to a beautiful morning with the mist melting as we drove. The top of Mount Cook was visible for a brief minute or two before it disappeared behind the other mountains. We took the opportunity to stop at Lake Lanthe for tea and toast and watched the mist clear over the lake as the sun started to hot up.
Tea and toast break at Lake Lanthe
Hokitika was the next main town to stop in where there was a mass of jade production galleries, and green stone jewelery for sale. We had a wander around the shops and found a photography gallery where Paul and I chatted with the German owner for about half an hour. His pictures was amazing, very clear, crisp - lots of early morning shots.
Hokitika town centre
Making Jade jewellery in Hokitika
We stay so long in the town that we treated ourselves to a whitebait pattie with chips - it was interesting, a bit like an over fried omlette without any flavour.
We headed on for Greymouth and stopped for supplies at the large Pak N Save. It was the first large store we had come across for a while. We got back on the road very quickly when we felt a little overwhelmed by the chavvy nature of the town, plus I even saw a woman with a Burburry baseball cap! ( Mum you would be proud).
The pancake rocks at Punakaiki were well worth a detour, we got ther two hours ebfore high tide so didn't get the full on experience of the noise of the blowholes but to be honest I was impressed enough at the dramatic coastline an rock formations.
'Pancake rocks' at Punakaiki -
with a storm brewing in the distance,
luckily we're heading in the opposite direction!
By 6pm we were back on the road and heading inland to escape the sandflies which were worse than ever. Unfortunately, we didn't drive far enough and the evening stop we made inland at a DOC site near Murchisson was spent inside the van swatting the buggers!
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