After finally reaching the west coast, we began our trip down the length of the island in Punakaiki and Hokitika, two of the main travel destinations in the island's northwest region. Hokitika was also where we picked up Maria (from the smallest airport I had ever seen - the entire baggage claim and waiting area was probably about the size of my house), who had been on a field trip the first few days of our trip. Finally KARMA was complete!
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| The first thing we did in Punakaiki was a walk to some caves. The sign at the start of the track warned us that there were two river crossings, but we figured there would be rocks or logs or something to jump on. Alas, we actually had to take our shoes and socks off and walk through the freezing water! Then, we had to walk barefoot across another area of rocks, pictured above, to the next stream and do the same thing again. |
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| Walking through the jungle. |
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| In the cave! It actually went back really far but I wasn't able to get any good pictures since it was dark. It was really cool to get to go into a cave where you could actually climb on and touch the rocks, unlike most caves I've been to which are roped off and paved over. |
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After successfully crossing both rivers on the way back!
Side note: if I can master the art of iMovie I'll be compiling a video of my study abroad escapades, so look out for videos of this "river forging" in that. |
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| After our hike, we went to Punakaiki Pancake Rocks, one of the most touristy places we've gone. But hey, we're sort of tourists, right? |
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| Looking out at the Tasman Sea (weird that the Pacific Ocean is on the east coast here). |
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| The pancake rocks! Called so because they look like stacks of flat pancake shaped rocks, caused by solidification of limestone into different hard and soft layers. At the bottom you can see one of the blowholes, which apparently are much more exciting at high tide. |
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| Here you can see a little more closely the layering effect in the rock. |
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| Watching the sunset after a drive along the coast with our windows down and jamming to the Beach Boys :) |
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| Eddie at dusk. |
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| The next day we picked up Maria and then headed to the famous Hokitika Gorge. |
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| The color of the water was crazy and so beautiful! It was also super clear - that rock you see in the water is actually underwater, not a reflection. |
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| Always having some fun on swing bridges. |
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| Some fun signs in the Hokitika town :) |
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| The above five photos are all from Sunset Point, a small peninsula of land where we watched the sunset, of course. To our left was the sun setting over the ocean, and to our right was beautiful, purple, snow capped mountains in the distance. Lonely Planet was right in saying that "THIS is New Zealand". |
