Whittling on the West Coast

So our time on the boysenberry farm finally came to an end last Thursday. We had an evening of celebratory drinks around a fire pit and said our goodbyes to Jeremy, Alena and the other couples. Whilst we were sad to be leaving, we’d certainly had enough of work for a while and were both excited to be getting back to adventuring! 

After looking at the best route to see as much of the South Island as possible, we decided to head over to the West Coast. We stopped off at Richmond on the way to stock up on supplies and fuel, then we were off! Our first night away from the farm was spent back at Lake Rotoiti in the Nelson Lakes National Park. We’d stayed here before and it was nice to have a familiar setting to find our feet in van life again. And find our feet we did, as we were soon back to needing to fix things!

One of the knobs on our gas cooker broke off on our first night away. This was especially annoying as had it happened during our time on the farm we would have had the resources, and access to shops if needed, to fix it. But alas, we were already over an hour from a Bunnings, so had to come up with a solution. This lead to Nathan spending the next day doing his best impression of a homo habilis as he used rocks to whittle a new knob out of a stick we found on a walk. Stubbornly refusing to use a knife, he had fashioned a working knob just in time for dinner.

You can check out his handy work below!

Gas cooker now fully operational, we continued our journey over to Westport, where we enjoyed a lovely walk along the coast to a NZ fur seal colony! This gave Josie the opportunity to try out her new binoculars (a Christmas present from Nathan)! As breeding season is just coming to an end, there were lots of cute seal pups who were just getting to grips with using their flippers to move over the rocks, making for some highly entertaining viewing for us.

From Westport we headed north as far as the road would take us into the Kahurangi National Park. We parked up at the DOC campsite and went for a walk along the beach to marvel at the huge waves (easily 10 ft high) crashing into the beach. The west coast is known for being wild and untamed and it was certainly living up to its name!

As spectacular as this campsite was, it was also plagued by sandflies, which managed to gnaw and nibble at any piece of skin we’d failed to cover. Itching, but undeterred (and covered from head to toe in deet) we went on an awesome hike along a section of the Heaphy Track to Scott’s Beach. This is a largely untouched part of the country with an almost impenetrable forest, unless you’re a DOC worker with a digger and a helicopter then you appear to be unstoppable. 

Before heading back down the coast, we decided to visit the Oparara Arches. These were some of the largest and most jaw dropping natural features we have seen yet. With our body clocks still firmly in boysenberry mode, we woke early to drive the 16km gravel logging track up the side of a mountain to be the first to see them that morning. After a short climb through a cave entrance, which gave Josie flashbacks to black water rafting, the chasm opened up to reveal incredible limestone arches with a river flowing through the bottom and stalactites hanging from the ceiling. They were truly other-worldly, like something out of a movie set and the experience left both of us reminded of why we chose to come to New Zealand.

We’ve now travelled south along the coast, through Westport, to Greymouth. From here we’re planning on traversing the country to Kaikōura on the east coast, for our long anticipated whale watching trip. Stay tuned to hear if we’re finally successful in spotting some!