The West Coast
Saturday: After writing last weeks blog we set out from Fox Glacier and drove a few kilometers up the coast along windy, steep roads between valleys to Franz Josef Glacier. We had flown up and over the actual glacier the day before but we stopped and took the opportunity to wonder around the small town itself.

Next we drove up the coast to Okarito, nestled right next to the coast and on the shores of a large lagoon there is not much to Okarito, however that lagoon is the only place in New Zealand where the White Heron nests. We are out of their breeding season now, the birds have dispersed all over the country, but with excellent feeding habitat in the lagoon also some birds inevitably stay and spend the winter also at the lagoon.

Our aim was to kayak onto the lagoon in the morning in search of these beautiful herons, however we had driven to the village in order to investigate the kayaking and lagoon itself. A bright sunny afternoon the sunlight sparkling on the water and mudflats, we scanned the lagoon hoping for a first glimpse. There across the silvery waters a large white, elegant and graceful bird walked sedately through the shallow water - a White Heron!

Despite having now seen the bird we were still keen to try kayaking in order to try and get a little closer, but that would have to wait till the morning. We returned a short distance down the road to a Department of Conservation Campsite on the shores of Lake Mapourika where we enjoyed the remaining afternoon sunlight reading and drying our tent.

Okarito has another special bird: The Okarito Brown Kiwi, a separate species from the other brown kiwi only found in the native forest around the lagoon. We could not resist going in search, despite feeling rather tired from our early morning adventure to Lake Matheson.
After dark we made our way back along the road to Okarito and pulled into a small car park, we were in Kiwi country. By the light of a thousand bright stars spread across the heavens above, we climbed a steep open path through the forest. It was tough, the gravel path beneath our feet crunched loudly with every footstep no matter how quiet we tried to be. A short way up we met another family out searching, it was good to see a young family getting their kids involved in bird watching, although they had not managed to find anything.

Turning round we returned to the carpark and walked along another path, much quieter this time, with tall shadowed trees surrounding us. The calls of Morepork - New Zealands native owl - rang through the trees, possums scuffled through the bush near the path, their bright eyes watching us as we watched them, but there were no Kiwi....

Exhausted from the long day we returned to our campsite.

Sunday: High cloud greeted us this morning as we drove back to the Okarito lagoon and hired out two single kayaks for 4 hours. The tide was still high, we followed the markers set through this part of the lagoon indicating the channel where the water would remain deep enough to kayak through when the tide went out. We were kayaking in a small part of the lagoon, which stretches 10km up the coast. As we skimmed across the calm, murky bluey brown waters we continually scanned the edges for White Herons.

We had not been going for long when up ahead and to our right we spotted one, slowly walking along the edge of the lagoon. Quietly we paddled over, fortunately for us the tide was still high and we were able to get over to where the heron was feeding. The water became really shallow, but was still just deep enough for us to paddle across. When we got close we stopped paddling and simply drifted watching this beautiful glossy white bird with a bright yellow bill feeding a short distance away. It was a wonderful moment being so close to such a elegant bird, we drifted really close before the heron took flight and glided away across the bluey grey lagoon.

We continued heading for the far end of this part of the lagoon where we could see a large group of Royal Spoonbills roosting on the bank. We paddled over hoping to get in close to take some photographs, the water got shallower and shallower until we were grounded still some way of from the 20-30 spoonbills still sleeping on the bank. We gave up and simply admired them from a distance and then continued making our way into part of the Okarito River system. We drifted, letting the current take us through narrow channels of brown murky water, either side in the bush small birds like Fantails flitted between branches.

Out of the river system and back on the lagoon we let the out going tide carry us slowly back towards the town. We saw another White Heron, which flew in towards us but we were now restricted to the deep channel, the water over the rest of lagoon was too shallow to paddle through. The heron kept to the great expanse of shallow water and soon moved away from us. Still we drifted watching this and other birds, we even spotted a Far-eastern Curlew feeding on the mudflats - an uncommon Arctic migrant to New Zealand!

Time was catching up and we steadily paddled back to the Old Wharf, grounded the kayaks on the beach, climbed out and returned to base for a wonderful cup of tea. It had been a wonderful trip on a beautiful lagoon filled with lovely bird life, topped off by our close encounter with the White Heron.

Leaving Okarito we drove north up the coast, round sharp corners and through dense forest, until the road straightened and the land flattened, filled with pastures and paddocks we were now in Gold Mining Country. We continued on to Hokitika, the NZ Jade capital of New Zealand.

Monday: We spent the morning exploring Hokitika, wondering through the numerous jade factories and admiring beautiful carvings in greenstone.

We then continued our drive north along the west coast, the calm, silvery ocean spread out to our left while paddocks spread to the right to meet the mountains whose tops were covered by the increasing cloud. As we continued past Greymouth the road left the shoreline, now hugging the tops of sheer cliffs that dropped suddenly to the beaches below. The mountains had closed in on our right, sheers walls of limestone shot up from the road and were capped with spindly trees and ferns, steep river valleys and mountains replaced the flat greeny yellow paddocks of grass.

The coastline was hazy, grey flat ocean rolled in wispy white waves along the bluish grey coastline of cliffs and boulders that stood in the mist like ghostly ships grounded on rocks.

We stopped at Punakaiki where we took a short walk through a forest of flax to look outs over Pancake Rocks. Towers of rock had been shaped by wind, rain and sea into what looked like stacks of pancakes. Massive holes, overhangs and caves were created in the towers by the action of waves that slammed into the rock with a boom that sounded like thunder. The tide was out and with not much swell there was little action on the Blowhole front - where water is forced up into the various holes and shafts and spurts out the top in a spray of white water.

Out over the silvery sea we could see large birds skimming over the waves and wondered whether they were Westland Petrels starting to come into their nests in the mountains down the coast, this is the only place in the world where these birds nest during the winter months. The something closer in the surf caught our attention... it surfaced again, a round black dorsal fin....Hector's Dolphins! About 15 of them were surfacing regularly in amongst the waves, a few even started breaching, leaping high out of the water and coming down with a great splash!

After leaving Pancake Rocks we drove up a nearby gravel road that led up a steep sided valley, with sheer limestone cliffs covered with trees, ferns and bushes. The road wound its way through the valley until it opened out as we reached a large paddock, the track continued through the paddock until it met the Inland Pack Route which split off through the forests and along the creek. We decided to camp here for the night, once more we were in prime Kiwi habitat, this time the Great Spotted Kiwi.

Night fell quickly and it was soon very dark, with no moon or stars visible this night. Once it got dark the calls of Morepork started to echo down the valley, joined by other strange shrieks and screams. Curiosity got the better of us and we headed out into the dark in search of kiwi once more. As we crossed the paddock suddenly something moved in the grass next to us. We froze, holding our breath! Our dim torches illuminated only a little way, there in the shadows at the edge of the light was a small, round, brown bird...nope not a Kiwi but a Weka!

On we walked into the forest, a morepork took flight from the trees nearby making us both jump! On we walked, then turned headed back to the paddock and then along the creek a little more. It was becoming obvious that even if there was a Kiwi here the area was so big and our torches so dull we had little chance of actually seeing one. We found another couple of possums before turning back and heading for bed.

Tuesday: It started raining during the night and kept raining into the morning. We woke to the sound of it hammering on our tent roof and dripping from the edges. Outside puddles were forming in the carpark and a female weka and her two chicks were nosing around the tent, almost trying to come in and seek shelter!

As quickly as possible we took the tent down, shoved it into the car and headed back down the gravel road searching for some shelter to have breakfast! We returned to the main road and Punakaiki, it was still raining hard and so we treated ourselves to breakfast and a hot chocolate in one of the cafes.

The rain had eased once we finished and blue sky was starting to poke through the monotonous grey cloud cover, since it was almost high tide we decided to take another walk to the Pancake Rocks and try to see the blowholes in action.
The ocean was rougher this morning, white caps tipped the grey green water, huge white breakers rolled into shore pounding against the pancake rocks. However at the blowholes only occasionally a little bit of spray burst up through the rocky crevasses, still not quite the right conditions for the explosive spray the area is known for. Still it was worth a try...

Next we drove up to Westport, along the tops of giant cliffs that dropped to beaches onto which white waves pounded. After a brief stop in Westport we now drove inland through the Buller Gorge. Below the road the Buller River snaked through the steep sided valley. Green mountains rose up either side of the road that twisted and turned its way through the valley. Finally we turned off and drove through one of the interlocking valleys to our right, into the Nelson Lakes National Park. We made our camp of the shores of Lake Rotoroa as the shadows lengthened. Soon a panoramic display of stars spread out over the lake and surrounding mountains, bright pinpricks of light reflected clearly in the shimmering black waters of the lake.

Wednesday: A freezing night! The morning warmed slowly with the rising sun.

Once packed we left the lakes and drove north to Motueka, we had been here before and had now completed a massive loop around the South Island of New Zealand. For the first time we saw trees in vivid shades of orange, red and yellow our first signs of autumn.

From Motueka we drove north to Kaiteriteri and from here along yet more steep, narrow and winding roads to Split Apple Rock, set in the greeny blue shallows of a golden sandy bay was a massive round rock that was split in half and did indeed look like a split apple!

A short drive north along more winding road to Mahaua and the gateway to the Tasman National Park. We walked the coastal track set against deep green mountains, through green bush, along golden sandy beaches and mud flats to Tinline Beach. Here on exposed rocks at the edge of the shore we found thousands of Green-lipped Mussels of a decent size, we collected some for dinner and also did a little searching amongst the rocks. Our search revealed sea slugs, cushions stars, sea urchins and sea squirts amongst other things.

After collecting some mussels and cockles and with long shadows starting to stretch across the sand we made our way back along the coast to the car. Camping back in Motueka we had a delicious meal of fresh mussels and cockles =)

Thursday: Another cold clear night and morning. We took our time leaving Motueka and drove the short distance to Nelson. We had plenty of time, planning to get the ferry to the North Island tomorrow, we took in a movie and then drove over the Bryant Range back to the beautiful Malborough Sounds and Picton.

We found a campsite a little further on from Picton, on the shores of a small tidal inlet. Here surrouded by 8 or 9 Pukeko including a tiny chick and numerous rabbits we watched the sun disappear behind the forested hills of the Queen Charlotte Sound. The hills and sky turned blue to purple and then to black, to be replaced by a glittering array of stars.

Friday: Yet another very cold night, but a clear crisp morning and warm once the sun burst over the tops of the surrounding hillsides.

By lunch we were back in Picton and boarding the Bluebridge Ferry for the trip across Cook Strait to Wellington. It was quite sad to say goodbye to the South Island but we had lots of wonderful memories to take with us.

Despite the sunny clear weather it was rather cold in the wind up on deck. However we stuck it out watching various birds skim past over the blue waves topped with small white caps. We also spotted a couple of Fairy Prions, small grey birds with a black V on its back, which we had not seen before.

By 5.30pm we had pulled into Wellington. With the sun setting we drove north, picked up some groceries and found a remote campsite to spend the night.