We planned two stops between Hokitika and Nelson. One of them was the Kahurangi National Park, which is famous for its untouched rain forest and the Oparara Bassin. The second one was Kaikoura at the east coast.
So the way went north along the west coast with three short stopovers, namely the Pancake Rocks (which looks like on each other superimposed pancakes), the blowholes directly next to them (which were not working as we were there at low tide and they work better at high tide) and Westport which is the last city 80km apart of the national park. Peter already warned us, but we didn’t believe him completely. These 80km took us OVER TWO HOURS. The road led over a pass again, which is so windy that it’s almost impossible to drive more than 40km/h in average. Fortunately we had crackers with us which helped against the sickness. Due to the countless extreme hilly and windy roads at the west coast of New Zealand we often felt sick, especially the one who doesn’t drive by himself.
After we finally left the pass behind us and it already was quite late we drove directly to the DOC campsite where we wanted to spend the night. Oh well, we didn’t mention that before… The Department of Conservation (DOC) in New Zealand built a lot of campsites in the national parks, which usually consists of a pitch and chemical toilet and sometimes tap water. Not very luxurious but consider the very cheap 6$/person and even good for the environment.
Anyway, the best about the DOC campsites is the often incredibly idyllic location, this one was directly at a river which ends in the sea (with again 10000 sand flies 🙁 ) just to give an example. Here is also the start of the Heaphy Track, one of the Great Walks of New Zealand which leads over the mountains to Golden Bay at the north coast. As far as we know, this is the only track which can be done seasonably by mountain bikes as well. Who thinks about something like that should consider this!
Ok, finally back to the story. After a night in the car we drove further to the national park to see the Oparara Bassin with two caves named Box Canyon and Crazy Paving and in addition we walked to the Oparara Arch and the Moria Gate Arch. The caves were quite small but completely dark which gives them a spooky charm. The Oparara Arch is an enormous kind of bridge of rocks, 200m long, 49m wide and 37m high. The Moria Gate is a smaller cave with a little lake, which unfortunately has nothing to do with the one of the Lord of the Rings.
Directly after that we started to drive to Kaikoura, our next stop, which is 350km away. First we had to cross the already mentioned pass again plus another one between the coasts, why it took us almost 7 hours. We spent two nights in Kaikoura one on a DOC campsite the other one on a “proper” one, just to get a shower and a hot meal. Unfortunately, Kaikoura has only one thing to offer, besidesa really beautiful walk along its peninsula: expensive cruises for whale and dolphin watching. After the girl of the tourist information told us that there are only 7 whales in the moment (during the season they have a lot more different ones coming across) and it’s quite likely not to see even one of them and we already saw some dolphins in Australia, we ended up driving to Nelson directly in the morning of the next day.
On the drive a highlight waited for us! 30km north of Kaikoura there is a baby seal colony! Usually things like that are highly overrated so we didn’t expect a lot, but we got highly surprised! The beach was crowded with seals and their little puppies, so many that it was impossible to count them. Shortly afterwards we did a little walk along a stream which ended at a little waterfall. This was very unspectacular by itself if there wouldn’t have been some of the taller seal puppies playing in the water. Even though we were a bit too early in the season to see a lot of them, we could spot two! After that we drove further to Nelson, to our next HelpX host Sue. But later more about that…