New Zealand – Christchurch to Hokitika

21st February, 2020

Well, the day started well, with a nice breakfast, an easy check out from the motel and we were on our way through the suburbs of Christchurch, heading towards the west coast of the South Island. The aim was as follows: drive through Arthur’s Pass National Park visiting the Devil’s Punchbowl Walking track, view the Otira Viaduct from the lookout and drop in to the Avalanche Creek Waterfalls. All planned well in advance with due cogniscance of driving time, ease of walking, loo breaks etc – except that the old plans did not take into account incredibly heavy rain coming down like stair rods making viewing anything much more than the windscreen wipers sloshing to and fro in front of us all but impossible.

It was definitely a shame, though we did start quite well with an unplanned (!) stop at Kura Tawhiti or the Castle Hill rocks, some 700 metres up (the altitude, not the height of the rocks!) which are a popular spot for bouldering and nearby Flock Hill station featured in the climactic battle scenes in the 2005 film The Chronicles of Narnia. They are limestone and very imposing and, thankfully when we visited, still in the dry.

The ‘dry’ soon ended and the rain started meaning the view of majestic peaks and deep valleys that are Arthur’s Pass were shrouded in cloud, which was, to say the least, a great shame and yours truly was not a happy bunny (as Val will testify!). Not many photos were possible as you might have guessed, but here is what we managed to capture:

We made it to the coast, turned left and headed south towards our overnight stop in Hokitika. We were staying in a sort of lodge at the hotel (another motel type establishment) and as it had now stopped raining, had time to look around their little farm with some rather nice llamas (or are they alpacas? Is there a difference?) and a truly splendid pig as well as a few more local specimens such as a sheep. We also popped down to the beach with the Tasman Sea rolling in.

Hokitika is a town founded on gold mining in 1864. We drove around it a bit trying to find somewhere for dinner and the grid layout of streets had some nice touches such as the art deco Regent Theatre cinema, a massive building that was the library and several other worthy-looking edifices in between the usual modern shopping mall type blocks. It is probably worth more of an exploration, but time, as ever was against us. We ate Chinese, which Val thought was OK and I thought was so-so.

Hokitika’s most famous incident occurred in 1941 when a disgruntled local farmer, Stanley Graham, went on a shooting rampage, killing 7 people, before being shot and killed himself after a 12 day manhunt.

It was then getting dark and we returned to the hotel, but the excitement was not over as across the road from it there is a glow worm dell (basically in a clump of densely packed trees). I liked the advice from the hotel that glow worms can only be seen at night (apparently there had been complaints!). You walk up a 50 metre track with the use of a torch (very useful these mobile phones – and I hear you can even phone people on them!) to the end where they are spectacularly glowing away all around and above you. Apparently these are New Zealand glowworm, New Zealand glowworm, Arachnocampa luminosa. The larvae are predatory and use their lights to lure prey into their webs. They are not that easy to photograph and the effect is not really captured, but here you go…

OK, one more post done, many more to go.