The West Coast
Leaving the Golden-Bay with Limor and Roee, I headed for the west coast. We said goodbye to Limor near Inangahua junction (and, by the way, there's quite a nice backpackers in some farm in that junction). The west coast is quite lovely all the way. I stayed in Punakaiki for a short while (and that's where Roee left) and I also did the Inland Pack track. It's a 2-day track, but you can do it in just one day. Quite fun, you have to cross the river around 20 times in that track. Better wait for a hot day, though.
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A typical west-coast beach. This beach is quite close to
Punakaiki. The backpackers there was really neat, just a house in the middle of the
forest. (It was called Te-Nikau retreat) |
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The "famous" pancake rocks in Punakaiki. Supposedly, there are some blowholes
there as well, but I have yet to see them, well, blow (I think the blowholes in Samoa
were way better!). |
| The Pororari river, the start of the Inland-Pack track.
A really beautiful river. |
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Fox river. That's the river you cross about 18 times in
this track. Talk about having fun!. |
| Yet more bush. It was quite nice, actually. |
| Another river crossing along the track. |
Still on the west coast (meeting with Gal & Yael)
After Punakaiki, I drove south, and made a stop in Hokitika (nice little town, with a great backpackers (Blue-Spur lodge). That's where I met Gal - a friend of mine from the army. Cool, eh? Gal traveled with Yael. We all traveled together for about a week, and then Yael went back to israel (poor girl...). Me & Gal traveled still for about 2 months, and it was great.Anyway, in Hokitika one of the fences near the backpackers ran into my little car. I tell you, those drunken fences in NZ! Luckily it wasn't serious, and I just had to pay around 50NZD to fix the door and the side mirror.
From Hokitika we went to walk on the Glaciers (Franz-Josef, actually), but stopped on the way to look for gold at Ross. We weren't really lucky (although the girl from the visitor information gave me a small nugget, so at least I've got something...)
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Me looking for gold... |
| Yael & Gal, giving up on the gold-seeking venture. |