After a brief taste of Otago and Southland we changed direction and headed to Westland. Our first stop was Fox Glacier with spectacular views and supposedly one of the most photographed lakes in New Zealand, Lake Matheson. Since we knew we eventually needed to end up back in Picton in a couple of days and the journey was quite long, we decided to plan more stops on the way. One of them was Hokitika, a tiny town which gave us a lot of surprisingly cool experiences, second one was Punakaiki with its otherworldly limestone creations and last but not least a town called Nelson, the geographic country center location. Going north, the countryside was changing a lot, and all the yellows and reds were green again. Come with us, we will show you what we saw and did in the West Coast.
- Fox Glacier and around
- Surprising Hokitika
- Pancakes at Punakaiki
- Nelson – geographic center of New Zealand
- How to get around
- Where did we stay
Fox Glacier and around
Our main intention when choosing destinations on the West Coast was to see and hopefully come close to one of New Zealand’s easiest accessible glaciers – Franz Josef or Fox Glacier. Sadly, due to extensive landslides during prior weeks both of them were accessible only by a helicopter or small planes, both options costing around NZ$500 per person. We chose not to go, but we could hear the buzzing of choppers paid for by others quite a lot. We decided for a two night stay in Fox Glacier village anyway!
Fox Glacier village is really tiny, but given the size, it offers plenty of funny and interesting stuff to do. Although we didn’t land on the glacier, nor could walk to its terminal face, we explored the region on bikes and on foot as far to the glacier as possible, given the trails` conditions.
Cycling trip to the Peak Viewpoint
The very next morning after our arrival we rented the bikes from our hostel and went for a ride. The bikes themselves were a bit run down and missing parts of their seats, because apparently local birds think it’s fun to nibble bike seats. *shrug*
Our first stop was the Peak Viewpoint, 9ish kilometers from the village towards the coast. The views of the Fox Glacier and the Southern Alps (now from the other side than Aoraki Mount Cook National park we visited several days earlier) was breathtaking. It was funny the glaciers and even Mount Cook seemed to be so close, but we were just 10 km from the sea.
Walking around the lake Matheson
Our next stop on our bike trip was Lake Matheson. This lake is famous for its perfect reflections of Aoraki Mount Cook and Mount Tasman and is supposed to be the most photographed lake in New Zealand. So we parked our wheeled horses and were ready shoot some pictures while walking around the lake to improve that statistics. Even if the reflection wasn’t so perfect that day. As we learned later, you’re supposed to go there early in the morning to catch the calmest time and well, early in the morning we sleep.
Hiking through the moraine
Because of the recent landslides, instead of a walk to the terminal face of the Fox Glacier, we had to settle for a moraine walk through an ancient rainforest padded with a soft moss carpet. The forest was amazing and felt like somewhere in Jurassic park.
And then, we saw the glacier. It was still quite far, but at the same time closest we could get in the current circumstances (and without a helicopter). It was beautiful and shimmering in the evening light.
There’s an educational part to the trail with painted marks showing you where the edge of the glacier was in the past. They tell a sad story: in the last 40 years, New Zealand’s glaciers lost almost 30% of their ice volume due to global warming. Yes, everyone has heard the facts about glaciers slowly melting, but we’ve never seen the void it’s left so tangibly before.
Playing with local animals
Apart from the glacier, Fox Glacier also stands for a small township with ca 300 inhabitants, several houses, hostels, cafes and tourist offices, plenty of sheep and cows. So being the friendly travelers we are, we’ve spent some time playing with all the local animals we’ve met. And they seemed to like us – to the point we started to think about what we’d say to the hostel staff if that one dog that’s been following us for a good 20 minutes comes all the way to our accommodation :)
Visiting the glow worm forest
You can find even a glow worm forest here! We visited one at night and it was an amazing experience. Walking through the dark rainforest and seeing all those tiny lights produced by those tiny worms was surreal.
Surprising Hokitika
Honestly, we had no idea about this place before our trip and we picked it quite spontaneously as a stop for one night when travelling north. This town was well-known during the gold rush times for its gold (duh) and is still nowadays famous for its jade. You can buy (or maybe find?) some precious stones here, but there are many more surprisingly cool activities for you to occupy yourself with. For some inspiration and our experience, read further.
Looking for some jade at the beach
In Hokitika, there are shops selling jade and gold all over the place. One of them has a huge gold nugget which they offer you to hold. In shops with jade art pieces and accessories, we could observe local craftsmen to process and polish this beautiful green stone and if we had more time here, I reckon we would consider going for a jade making lesson.
Since we heard jade can still be found at the beach, we wanted to try our luck, find some precious stone and then produce some pendants later. This was the plan. Pepe really found some at the beach. Well, we believed it was jade and not just some regular greenish stones and we carried them with us all the way since then. When you’re carrying a bag of stones for 3+ months of travel, you’ll easily make yourself believe it’s the real thing :)
Here is Pepe looking for jade and practicing his Haka to help him with this task.
Enjoying the sunset
The next thing this place is famous for are its sunsets. We read somewhere that they should be the most spectacular in New Zealand. Not sure about that as we haven’t seen all the sunsets from all over the country, but the one sunset we’ve witnessed that evening was spectacular enough. What do you think?
Visiting the National Kiwi Center
The attraction we enjoyed the most was the National Kiwi Center. We finally got to see a couple of crazed kiwis sprinting laps around their enclosure. As the caretaker explained, there used to be a different male in the enclosure before they replaced him with the current new one, and the new one can still sniff his rival’s musk all over the place and he ain’t happy about that.
Furthermore, we also fed and petted huge 80-110yo eel ladies. Yes, that does sound weird, but these rescue eels were used to people taking care of them and they just hung out on two wooden platforms suspended just below the edge of the tank. Left platform meant “feed me” while the right one was “chill zone”. We’ve learned that eels die after mating, but as these were forgotten in captivity and didn’t have a chance to mate, they just kept on living! We were so lost in the moment that we totally forgot to take pics.
Going for a walk in Hokitika Gorge
Hokitika Gorge is a nice and peaceful place with unreal milky blue water. Well, the second part of this claim is not always true, as we saw. If it rains for a couple of days the water is rather dull and grey. But it was still a stunning place and a nice refreshing walk in the reserve.
Hokitika Gorge Scenic Reserve is a short trip from the center of Hokitika. Probably the best way to visit it is driving there or being driven there directly from the town. We booked the return transport via i-site in Hokitika.
Pancakes at Punakaiki
Punakaiki or Pancake Rocks were further on our way to the north of the South Island. It was again an unplanned spot in our journey further north and it really exceeded our expectations. We do prefer pancakes made of dough and not limestone, but these ones were pretty cool! They were formed 30 million years ago from dead marine flora and fauna and the pancake shaped layers were created by a combination of immense water pressure, seismic activity, acidic rain, wind and sea. So basically it’s a unique cooperative masterpiece of all the elements.
During our brief stop here, we did a short and easy Pancake Rocks and blowholes walk. Have a look at what we captured :)
Nelson – geographic center of New Zealand
Nelson, geographical center of New Zealand, was our last stop on the South Island before taking the ferry from Picton back north. The main reason to visit this city is usually Abel Tasman National Park that is not far from here. That’s also what we wanted to do as well. However, we messed up with our planning again and didn’t go in the end. But you should! We still had one full day in the city and found an alternative program.
Climbing to the Center of New Zealand
The Center of New Zealand is located atop the Botanical Hill in Nelson. You can easily reach the track from the eastern edge of the city center. We must admit the hilltop views are fantastic – you can see the city, Tasman Bay and green valleys all around.
Joining the locals at the beach
In the afternoon, we decided to go to Tahunanui Beach, the main city beach lying on the shore of the Tasman Bay. We had a walk and met a lot of locals with even more dogs playing in the water. Yes, the sunset was quite magical.
Strolling through the city
As in every new city, we wanted to explore a bit. We found a very nice Japanese Miyazu Garden, nice parks or an interesting Christ Church Cathedral.
How to get around
The whole journey from Wanaka back to Picton, where our South Island round trip started, is very long (cca 800 km), so we decided to split it into several legs. However, we did all the parts using the same bus company as before, booked all tickets online and paid by our flexi passes. Same same, you know it already :)
In Wanaka, we hopped on the bus and this time, we had a long 6h long journey ahead of us to reach Fox Glacier, our first stop. Our bus driver was very funny and talkative and told us a few Maori stories about the glaciers and mountains and gave inside info about life in the sparsely populated West Coast, including some local rumors.
The next part of the journey, from Fox Glacier to Hokitika, was 3 hours. The road led through Franz Josef Glacier, an alternative we considered as our base instead of Fox Glacier. After 24 hours spent in Hokitika we jumped on our bus again and traveled further north. After an hour and a half we had a refreshing stop at Punakaiki to stretch our legs and enjoy the scenery. Afterwards we entered the same bus again and continued 4.5 hours to Nelson. The last piece to close the South Island round trip was a short 2 hours bus ride from Nelson to Picton. And then we could board the InterIslander ferry going back to the North.
When travelling along the West Coast, there isn’t a train connection similar to the coastal trains in the East connecting Picton and Christchurch. However, there is an option to take the Tranz Alpine train connecting Christchurch with Greymouth and cross the Arthur Pass. Greymouth lies in the middle between Hokitika and Punakaiki and the bus stops quite conveniently directly at the train station. We didn’t try this option since we wanted to go north, but crossing the Arthur Pass by train will definitely be on our list for the next time.
Where did we stay
Fox Glacier: The village is very small, so there aren’t too many accommodation options to choose from. You can still choose something that suits your comfort zone as well as the comfort zone of your budget. We stayed in Ivory Towers Backpackers Lodge and we were very satisfied. The lodge had comfy rooms and a huge kitchen centered around a massive wooden table cut from a half of a tree. Pepe fell in love with it and we agreed that once we’ll have our own house we‘ll get a table like that. There’s also a bike rental for trips in the area and a small infra sauna to unwind after a day of cycling around.
Hokitika: We stayed in a very centrally located hostel Mountain Jade Backpackers. From our cozy double room we could see the clock tower in the middle of the town. There was also a very well equipped kitchen and common room as well as a lot of dining options and cafes just next door.
Nelson: We decided to stay in Nelson for two nights, but our pick of the shelter – Abel Tasman Backpackers – wasn’t the best one we’ve made. It was run down, noisy, cold – we literally had to fall asleep wearing a beanie and listening to a concert next door. But hey, that’s what you get for being too stingy.
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