Birdsong Hokitika

"Four seasons in one day" was probably written about Melbourne! The weather has lurched from dull, misty and cool to bright, steamy and tropical. Sunday's bbq on the Yarra was great until the cloud came down and and the north wind meant we had to don sweatshirts to stay warm. Jet lag is still a problem - wake up at 2 or 3 in the morning and then struggle to sleep again. Monday was a packing day for Joe and Heather, our hosts. Joe did take us to a few local parks and beauty spots, including La...

Friday, January 19 Westport to Hokitika The day begins with gray skies as we explore the old Coal Mining area of Denniston where they mined coal from 1880 to 1967. The remains of the incline that they used to bring the coal down the mountainside are about all that is still evident. Nearby is the old cemetery with graves as far back as 1867. Yes, that coal mining was a dangerous business. We are glad to see the sun as we drive round the Cape Foulwind on the West Coast of the Southern Island he...

Jess' Take: Hi again! We are still in the Nelson area at the time of writing this but for this entry I will continue where I left off. Croft and I decided to hitchhike from Glacier Country to Hokitika. As Franz Josef is a pretty small town, with tourists being the main people passing through we got up bright and early so we were at the exit right around 10am (check out time). We had been waiting for about 30 minutes or so when low and behold two girls arrived and set up hitchhiking HQ right i...

I arrived at Birdsong on Sunday afternoon, a beautiful cosy backpackers just 2km outside of Hokitika. The place was bright and cheery, with huge paintings of native birds on the walls. It really did feel like a home, especially as the log fire roared constantly throughout my stay. On my first afternoon, I went for a walk along the driftwood-strewn beach, and had a browse around the shopss in town. It seemed like a tranquil kind of place, but there was enough there to warrant a stay of a coupl...

I was fast turning into Charlotte's lucky charm, as we woke to a completely blue sky on Tuesday morning - absolutely perfect conditions for her proposed heli-hike. It was really hot too, with the temperature touching 20 degrees - another factor that vindicated my move up north, as the freezing Invercargill was still fresh in my mind! While Charlotte went on her trip, I basked in the sun and got up to date with my journal. When the heat got a bit much, I went and gave Murray a call to make sur...

We only had a 4 hour drive to our next destination, so there was no need to rush. We called off at a supermarket just outside of Blenheim to stock up on food, as I'd booked us into a backpackers that was in the middle of nowhere on a dairy farm - I was providing Mum and Stu with plenty of variety! The roads were completely deserted as we moved towards the west coast. We did pass a farmer whose dogs did a great job in getting a herd of sheep to move for us, but other than that it was really qu...

Long drive down from Nelson, stopping at the longest swingbridge in NZ, over the Buller river. Where we panned for gold (and found some), got eaten alive by sandflies :-( We took the quick route back tandem comet!! and were told to "fly like a bird", basically a zip line with harnes/chairs, Ellie in front, me behind. Another stop at Cape Foulwind to see the a large seal colony seals and to recreate the famous photographs at the fingerpost. Apparently it is closer to London than to Paris (not...