Punakaiki to Okarito

Today we had our first introduction to what mornings on this trip are going to be like.  Wake up bright and early before the sun, group breakfast cooked by our trip guides at 7:30am, pack a sandwich for lunch, then everything cleaned up, bus and trailer loaded and on the road by 8:30am.  Obviously the habit I’ve developed on this sabbatical of sleeping until 9am is coming to a quick and painful end.

After breakfast we set out on our first decent hike of the trip - Pororari to Punakaiki River track, in Paparoa National Park, a 30,000ha area of native rainforest, mountain ranges and rugged coastal beaches.  This was a beautiful first hike - up alongside one riverbed, across the saddle and down another river, all through a gorgeous subtropical rainforest.  Before setting out we made sure we had plenty of fresh water, crystal clear and right out of the river:

The hike turned out to be a bit longer than we anticipated when we missed our first turn off and had to double back to it, adding an extra ~1.5 miles to our planned 5 mile hike.  But when the trail winds along a clear river through a shady rainforest canopy with palm trees and ferns lined with sheer limestone cliffs, none of us complained a bit.  Here are a few pics from the hike:

Our morning behind us and with most of us ready for a good long sit after the hike, we hopped back onto the bus and set out for our destination for the next two nights, Okarito.  Along the way we stopped in Hokitika to stretch our legs, load up on supplies (most importantly booze), and to do some early souvenir shopping.  I’m quickly learning that the “must have” souvenirs from NZ are local jade jewelry and carvings, merino wool, and possum fur.  Yes, possum fur.  They apparently have farms where they raise possums here, so if you wind up with a gift of possum fur, rest assured it wasn’t scraped off the road.  

Continuing on our drive down the coast, it reminds me a bit of driving on Highway 1 in California - scenic coastal views of the Tasman Sea most of the way down.  But when we turn our heads inland, its rugged mountains.  Sheep and cows are grazing on both sides of the road.  Literally every turn looks like a postcard.  It’s stunning. 

Arriving in the seaside town of Okarito (pop. about 20 people), we take a quick walk on the beach while our guides sort out the room assignments in our rental houses.  It doesn’t take long before we are introduced to the sand flies the west coast is infamous for.  They are bloodthirsty and quite vicious.  Awesome!

The evening meal is a group BBQ prepared at the rental house I’m staying in, with lamb, chicken wings and sausages.  Now that we finally have booze, it’s time to let loose a bit, get to know each other, and really find out who the drinkers are.  Those are the peeps I want to hang with on this trip.

A few pieces of NZ lingo we’ve learned over the past 2 days:

1. “Sweet as” - pretty much the equivalent of “wow, that is fantastic”, but used appropriately as a stand alone sentence.  Example: “Hey mate, did you catch last night’s rugby match?”  ”Yeah, sweet as!”
2. Drop bears - fictional creatures that hang out in the trees on hikes, waiting to pounce on and attack misbehaving children (or tourists that are lingering for photos and water too long, particularly when the guides have a tight schedule for the day).
3. Whitebait - small juvenile fish, about the length of my pinky but 1/10th the width.  Incredibly valuable, people fish for them on the west coast by net and are rather territorial about their fishing grounds.  Legend says once were so plentiful on the west coast that during the Great Depression in the 1930s, people used them to fertilize their gardens. Today they fetch about $30 per pound, and can be found on the menu in some west coast restaurants.  I missed a chance to get some in Punakaiki last night (chose a venison burger instead), but if I see it on a menu again I’m getting it.

Up for tomorrow - our first kayaking adventure.