Friday, November 1, 2013
There is nothing like opening your door to go out and find
the motel manager standing right there. He has his laptop in hand checking out
the signal of the WiFi. He asks Bob if he’s getting any signal and explains
that something has gone haywire with the repeater. He apologizes profusely. He
even offered to let Bob use his personal account. Bob graciously declined. We
sit in the car by the office for a minute to check email and discover that we
have won the auction for an upgrade on our return New Zealand Air tickets!
Whoohoo! High fives as we are on our way out of Greymouth.
We get a little rain at the start but soon the sun is
shining brightly and we are excited as we arrive at our first site, the
Punakari Pancake Rocks and Blowholes. I had watched a video on the TV in our
room of the rocks and blowhole and couldn’t understand where they’d earned
their pancake name until we got there. The rocks look like giant stacks of
stone pancakes!
It is high tide and when we near the blowhole called the
Chimney Pot, we can hear the boom as the water rushes through from the surf.
It’s picture time. The sun is at the right angle to create rainbows every time
the blowhole spouts salty spray. By the time we are ready to move on, we can
taste the salty sea water on our lips.
We check out several other places where the surf
dramatically meets the rocks but as I take a close up picture of the rocks, I
notice the dark cloud in the background. I tell Bob we’d better pick it up and
finish. Not long after, the rain starts in earnest. We are farther away from
the car than I thought and we are huffing and puffing by the time we get there.
My sweater is wet but the camera tucked under it seems to have survived all
right.
By the time we have removed our wet outer layers, the sun
has poked through again. It looks to be one of those days. We move on to Cape
Foulwind. I’m not fond of the name especially after getting drenched once
already. But the sun is with us all the way for the hour long trip. Just as we
arrive however, the rain begins to spit. It’s not bad but we don our all
weather coats and Bob grabs an umbrella.
About 50 feet up the walk, we meet a Weka (woodhen). We saw
them at Shantytown just a day ago. It isn’t afraid of us at all and in fact
appears to be begging for a handout. The rain starts in a little harder and we
would put up the umbrella but it is awfully windy. As we round the bend to the
big lookout area to see the seal colony that is there, it pours. Not only does
it pour it hails—little pebbles of ice. Bob puts up the umbrella and we hope
for the best as we start back to the car.
It isn’t more than five minutes later that the rain stops
and the sun promises to peek out again. I look at Bob and tell him we need to
turn around. We’ve come this far, let’s go back and take our pictures. It’s
hard to pick out the seals from the wet rocks but I get a couple of shots and
we decide to chance walking a little further on the track for a glimpse of the
lighthouse.
We meet several more Wekas along the way. When they decide
they are not getting a handout, they run from us. They resemble chickens when
they run.
On a rise, we can see just the tip of the lighthouse that is
on the other side of another outcropping of rock and too far away for us to
want to walk any farther. We turn back, greet the Wekas again and go back to
the car park where Bob feeds the Weka there by hand. A couple of gulls enjoy
catching some bread pieces in the air.
On our way again, we are looking for the Information Center
in Westport to try to find out what is about 20 minutes north of there that our
host at the motel said we needed to see. We can’t read his writing on the map
and neither of us can remember exactly what it was. At the IC we spot a
brochure for The Denniston Mine Experience and realize that is it.
Lady Garmon has no idea of where we want to go but I finally
get her to lead us to the little town on the map where we would need to turn to
get to Denniston. It turns out Denniston was a town way on top of a small
mountain that was established when they began mining coal from the mountain.
Only two houses still exist in the town that used to have a population of 1500.
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| From here it's all down hill! |
It is an amazing story of how they did all of the mining. The
mine was at the top of a mountain plateau more than 1500 feet up from where the
coal needed to go to be shipped. The men rigged a railway called the Incline.
With cables, counterweights, huge hydraulic brakes, etc., they were able to
raise and lower rail cars full of coal from the Rochfort Plateau to the Conns
Creek Yards below. From there it could be transported by locomotive to the
shipping harbor. The Incline operated from 1879 to 1967. There are great
pictures at the Denniston
Experience website that show the Incline.
We have to backtrack a bit to get on the route that will
take us to New Zealand’s longest swing bridge. I’m not so keen on doing this
one but I’ll try it. It takes us a while to find the signs to point the way but
they begin to appear as we near the area. When we pull in, we realize it is
going to cost us to cross over. Not bad though. Only $5 NZD for a thrilling
walk across a 300 foot long bridge that is see-through and hangs over the
Buller Gorge. Am I really going through with this? 
I take a picture at the start then put the camera around my
neck so I can hold the sides as I walk across. Below my feet I can see the
Buller River swollen with all the rain that we’ve had here lately rushing by. I
am surprised that this bridge is actually easier to walk that some of the
smaller ones we have done. I think it’s because it’s not so wide. Maybe that
makes it a little more stable. It’s a bit of a rush but I’m glad to be across.
There is a 20 minute loop walk that takes us past some
places that are marked as the fault line for the earthquake that happened there
in the early 1900s. Then we pass some signs on a tree that show how high the
water got in a couple of floods of years past, the most recent being 2012. We
pass by the zip line return option (for an extra cost) and follow the bridge
signs to go back across the river. I prefer the bridge to the zip line.
It was a neat experience but I’m ready to get to our motel
and rest a bit. We are about forty-five minutes away when we find a little town
with a couple of tearooms and cafes none of which have any coffee for us to
purchase. We think they might be closing up for the day since it is after four.
Many places in New Zealand close early.
I promise to make coffee when we arrive in St. Arnaud and we
travel on. There is a little spot of rain here and there but mostly sun that
actually makes for steamy roads where the rain has fallen. The road takes us
through a beautiful river valley and finally up a little to a small
mountainside village. There are only a couple of motels, some chalets, and what
look to be some summer or maybe winter ski homes. There are two ski areas close
by.
The Alpine Lodge is busy when we arrive. This is the
starting point for a bike marathon that we saw advertised a while back as we
started out this morning. We had wondered if we would run into any of it as we
drove. Apparently it doesn’t start until tomorrow and they will be going the
opposite direction we are so we won’t have to dodge cyclists around curves and
bends in the road.
The dining room at the Lodge has a special menu tonight, a
BBQ, because of so many marathoners staying here. The lady at the desk goes
over the menu which sounds okay but she also tells us of a café/restaurant
around the corner a bit. We check it out and decide that after a walk down to
the lake here, we’ll opt for their menu.
The lake is an easy walk from the Lodge. Birds are singing
and the wind has stopped blowing so hard making it a bit warmer. I am learning
that 9°C can be a bit chilly when there’s a cool wind blowing. While Bob walks
around checking out all the signage from the park, I sit and just absorb the
calm water, the sleeping ducks, the surrounding mountains, and listen to the
birds sing. It is so peaceful. I just want to soak up the peace. Wish I could
bottle it but it will have to reside somewhere in my memory where I can pull it
out when needed.
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