Getaway to Hokitika

After a long summer spent working hard on my thesis and other things, I was in much need of a break. I had been itching to go on a road trip for a long while, and the long Queen's Birthday weekend (June 4th was a holiday in NZ) was a good opportunity to get away. We decided to go to the little tourist town of Hokitika on the West Coast of the South Island, since it is only a 3-ish-hour drive from Christchurch and I hadn't been there before. Did the car overheat on the drive over, forcing us to limp back to town (and blast the heater on so it could make it) and switch it out for a rental car? Yes. But that did not prevent us from having a good weekend away!

It turned out to be a really nice time. The sunsets were pretty, the mountains were gorgeous all covered in snow, and the weather was amazingly clear and sunny the whole time! (The West Coast is known for always being rainy.) We could hear the ocean from the hostel room, and it was a soothing sound.

They're big into the driftwood art here and have an annual competition for it, which is kinda cool.

There is a glowworm cove accessible right from the main highway, so we went there at night and got to see hundreds of glowworms in the trees. The next day we drove the 33km out to the Hokitika Gorge with its pretty glacial blue water. There were a ton of fantail birds flitting around all of the tourists. There must be a lot of bugs around. After one brushed me, I realized there were indeed sandflies buzzing around and that was it. Thankfully I avoided getting bitten so no itchy bumps that last for weeks when you get home!

The scenery was nice: lots of farmland surrounded by mountains, and then the rocks on the oceanfront and an old washed-up ship. We splurged on one nice meal which was well worth it. The scalloped potatoes were delicious -- I haven't had them in many many years.

We also drove up to the Pancake Rocks, which are a unique geological feature and they're not quite sure about how they formed. The tide was low so we didn't get to see the full blowhole effect, but it was still beautiful and we could still hear and see smaller splashes and the thundering when water gets stuck in an underwater cave and howls.

We still had time to see the Brunner Mine, which actually had some good historic plaques and lots of abandoned machinery and bits. There was a collapse back in the day which killed a bunch of people. The ponies knew something was up and refused to go in, but they forced them to. :( You gotta listen to the animals -- they have different (often better) senses than we do.

On the drive back, we stopped briefly to walk around the Londonderry Rock. It was one of those rocks that doesn't get ground up by a moving glacier and rides the top of it, so it never has a chance to break down. The miners tried to break it up but it was too big, so they just worked around it. The thing is massive. I wouldn't want to be anywhere near it for an earthquake.

We also stopped at Arthur's Pass on the way back and saw four kea in the parking lot. They are such intelligent parrots. Some of the other tourists were feeding them (which is a big no-no) and photographing them. They get so much attention. Unfortunately they are more endangered than the kiwis, with only a few thousand left after they were hunted by farmers back in the day because they would attack their flocks.

Sydney's Blue Mountains at Katoomba

The cheap flights to Sydney are very early in the morning, so we had to get up before 3:00am to make it to the airport on time. Then, with the time difference, you arrive about the same time as you left, so your internal clock is confused. We took the train at the airport out to the Blue Mountains, but unfortunately there was track work that weekend so we had to transfer to a bus for the last leg of the journey. Once in the town of Katoomba (the biggest tourist spot at the Blue Mountains), we walked the short ways to Echo Point to view The Three Sisters rock formation which was lovely, then walked about a mile and a half to the downtown area to get dinner. We got caught in a thunderstorm and had to wait underneath an eave while lightning displayed above and thunder pounded and rain poured -- some of us were more enthused than others about that scenario!

The next day we went to Scenic World, which is the easiest way to explore the rainforest down in the valley of the Blue Mountains. It has the steepest railway in the world (52-degree angle), along with two cable cars: one that goes into the rainforest and one that goes across the valley and has a glass-bottom floor! The train ride down was pretty scary because it is so steep you feel like you're going straight down, but it was fun. It's like a roller coaster but without the drop. The area used to be a big coal mine, and the miners had it a lot worse back in the day when they took that trip in a dinky mine car. Taking the train back up was actually scarier I think, because you feel like your body is falling the wrong way and it feels very weird.