Continuing south on SH6, we stopped at Pancake Rocks in Punakaiki for a few hours to marvel at these wonderful thin bedded limestone outcrops on the shore line. The signs claim that the origin of these formations mystifies geologists. The cliffs are grey, and alternating layers of mudstone and limestone resulted in differential weathering, so in the places where the mudstone has eroded, the side of the rock makes a convex curve inward. The result looks like an enormous stack of pancakes. But that explanation is apparently not satisfactory to some people, so they have cooked up the idea of stylobedding, which supposedly means when the limestone was in solution under compression, the layers of mudstone precipitated out. My family geologist never heard of this, and we think it sounds fishy. We were able to walk on the outcrops and see the ocean flow under a natural arch into soccer field-sized opening that becomes a blow hole at high tide. I got one shot where you can see the spray from the crashing ocean waves makes a rainbow. I heard the booming waves before I saw them, and I thought it was an earthquake. No such luck. Yet.
Lots of White Fronted Terns were gliding around, arguing with each other and nesting on the sea stacks close to shore, and further out was a colony of Spotted Shags, another life list bird.
Down the coast past Greymouth to the little town of Hokitika, where we stayed November 15 in the Birdsong backpacker. Two bunks, shared bath, NZ$70. Not a great value, but the owner Neil is a jolly fellow. His wife has painted a different native bird on the wall of each room, and cards with her paintings are available. It’s sort of a naïve style, pretty nice. Just down the road is a narrow dell where we walked with our torches in the dark after dinner to see glowworms. They are fly larvae that live on the steep walls of a creek drainage. They glow with a blue green light to attract food and look like stars. Very pretty.
Steve is losing weight and I am gaining. Getting from place to place and finding lodging doesn’t leave him as much time as he would like for eating. I however, eat a lot faster than he does, so I spend at least an hour a day waiting for him to finish. Often after about 20 minutes or so of watching him eat, I decide to order something chocolate to occupy myself while I wait.
So far our search for delicious chocolate desserts has been a failure, but we keep trying. We can't understand this, because most of the rest of the time the meals are fabulous and artfully presented. Steve says only the Italians, Germans, French and Americans (in the U.S) know what to do with chocolate.
On SH6, we saw Penguin Crossing signs like the Weka Crossing signs, but so far, no real Penguins.
I found one of Sunbeam’s hairs on my slacks today. It’s been a while since that happened, but it delights us to have a bit of her here with us.
Hokitika is on the tour bus route, and there are plenty of ways to spend money here. We went to a jade factory and saw some beautiful jewelry. We also went in a gold store that had gold nuggets. The local nuggets are smooth from being tumbled in streams. Nuggets from Fiordland are rougher, with more character. We really fancied a gold in quartz matrix specimen from the Nelson area.
A watercolorist named Fiona Carruthers was minding a gallery where some of her paintings were for sale. I bought two cards depicting palm trees. The original paintings are in a show in Darfield, on the road between Arthur’s Pass and Christchurch. If we go that way, perhaps I will check at the gallery and see whether I want to buy the originals. They spoke to me because they are the colors I used in decorating our second home in the desert.
Hokitika is next to the ocean, and we thought of having brekkie at a picnic table by the beach, but it was too windy and damp, so we ate in a restaurant and then went to Sweet Alice’s Fudge Kitchen because she offered free fudge samples. They were making waffle cones next to the marble slab where the ice cream is mixed with fruit. The thin batter was poured onto the waffle iron, a soft round waffle is cooked, and then wrapped around a cone. I had never seen that done before. They said they started making their own because so many of the commercial cones were broken in transit. They make soft serve frozen yoghurt to order with fresh fruit, so Steve got a kiwi yoghurt. Yum.
Now we are in the town of Frans Josef Glacier (pronounced GLAY-see-er). We paid for two nights (November 16 and 17) at the Top 10 Holiday Park, which is mostly a campground for the ubiquitous travelers in caravans, as they call the small RVs. We have an ensuite room for NZ$99. I thought that because we would be inside waiting for the rain to stop, we might as well have somewhere comfortable.
It rains 15 feet a year here, so we really shouldn’t be surprised that it’s raining now. We brought rain pants and waterproof coats and I bought a pair of waterproof hiking boots in expectation that we would spend a lot of time outside in the rain, but we haven’t needed any of that stuff yet, and now that we do, we are sort of bummed. We are further bummed by learning today that climbing on the Frans Josef or the nearby Fox Glaciers is not recommended for people within a year of having knee surgery. My surgery was two months ago, so that counts me out. The ability to take steps up to two feet high is required, and while I may be able to go up okay, I’m pretty sure going down will be a problem. I have done okay hiking so far, but there have been a few days when I wondered whether I would be able to walk the day after a hike.
Steve says we put off our trip to New Zealand just a little too long. We had always thought of hiking in this country as something we should do while we’re still in halfway decent condition, and leave the easy museum visits in Europe for our old age. But old age snuck up on me when I wasn’t looking.
