Greetings from a Dunedin internet cafe. I just returned (by bus) from two days/night out on the Otago peninsula, which is an old-fashioned oasis of wildlife refuges and sheep farms, on a bony finger of green land that juts out into the ocean from downtown Dunedin. I stayed at “Bus Stop Backpackers” which included an old-fashioned cottage with several shared rooms, a private double bed in an old caravan (actually, a converted “cattle trailer” permanently parked out behind in a pleasant landscape of cottage gardens), or a private double in an old green bus, permanently perched on the hillside just meters up from the sheltered harbor shoreline. For $23 NZ, the place came with an indoor kitchen, garden seats for dining, an antique radio that picked up an eclectic mix of jazz, r-&-b, and blues, and a snuggly cat (Georgie).

Obviously, I enjoyed it a great deal. Picturesque and peaceful. The hillside ran straight up, above the hostel, to a high pasture where sheep grazed and bleated softly throughout the mornings and evenings.

As soon as I arrived, I hitched a ride out to the farthest tip of the peninsula, to the head where the Royal Albatross center protects and interprets the only mainland colony of albatross found anywhere in the world. These albatross, I was told, tend to their nests this time of year, but on of the pair will usually get active in late afternoon, and start fishing. Not a sight I wanted to miss! Adult Royal Albatross have wingspans of 8 meters, and are so aerodynamically efficient they rarely “flap” their wings at all — all they need to do is adjust the angle of the wing, or tilt a set of feathers this way or that, and they lift or lower or bank accordingly. At the head of the peninsula, tour-buses and cars pull up, and most don’t want to pay the entrance fee to view the colony up close — they just stand in the parking lot, looking hopefully up into the air. The air is full of gulls and shags and a hodge-podge of other sea-birds, and a lot of tourists point hopefully at this or that large bird, getting it wrong.

The albatross may not be in the air at all, for hours — but when they are, they are not mistaken for something else. They appear suddenly, soaring clockwise around the conical stone head of the peninsula, not moving their giant wings at all. The albatross look like hang-gliders, or ultra-light cargo planes, more than birds: one is awestruck as they glide overhead.

A few minutes later, the same bird drifts by again, still moving clockwise. It merely hangs in the wind, effortlessly riding circularly in currents where the other seabirds struggle and pitch and whirl and flap and screech. After an hour or two looking through the interpretive center and watching the birds from the patio, with a cup of coffee, I bought a ticket for the last tour of the day, and went up with a few other tourists. The walking route is a steep zigzag with a tour guide, to reach the pinacle of the peninsula, which includes a “hide” shelter with mirrored glass, for viewing the birds on the other side. The closest bird was only a few meters beyond the hide! A huge bird, it was resting over a recently hatched chick. Several other nests were visible, but the albatross nests are well spaced. By contrast, the shag nesting area just below (on the steepest bare-rock-and-guano bank), resembled a condominium complex, with bird-by-bird-by-bird.

Albatross, after mating for life, fly off alone to circumnavigate the waters of the Southern Ocean, off Antarctica. Most, it is understood, fly all the way to the waters between Antarctica and South America. They are at sea for a year at a clip, resting only on the surface of the water. When they are about 8 years old, they fly back to the same colony where they were born, and reunite with their mate, and if their reunion is successful, produce one giant egg. After a very long incubation period, they (hopefully) produce one chick. After raising the chick, they fly off in different directions again, completely exhausted by parenting. They take a year off, and return the next year. Albatross live to be very old – perhaps 60 years old – but their reproduction rate is low, so they are specially protected. It was truly fantastic to view them – dozens of them in the air, and on nests.

With one day of “exploration time” remaining, I woke early the next morning wishing vaguely that I had a car for one day. So much to explore! I set off walking with a map, a bottle of water, some dried fruit, a book, and my camera. One little by-road led to another — I walked the back side of the peninsula, on graveled roads that wound and curved in and out of bayside coves where the map showed them going straight around, and only straightened out to climb “straight” up and over more steep hills.

Finding a walking route (Nyhon Track) I followed it up into the steep hillside where flocks of sheep where grazing, oblivious to the incredible views beneath them. Emerging back onto Sandymount gravel road on the other side of the ridge, I walked around to Ridge Road, and down through more sheepfarm fields into sand dunes until I came at last to Sandfly Bay. It was blisteringly hot, and I cooled my feet in a freshwater stream where it flowed down to the sea. That wasn’t cold enough, so I went out to walk in the waves. Further down the beach, there was a “hide” constructed for viewing the elusive yellow-eyed penguin, which I spent several hours in (without luck). These penguins are very shy, and sneak out of their nests in the grass and dune scrub very early in the morning, and spend the day at sea, fishing. Sometimes (this time of year they have hungry chicks in the nest) they come back ashore during the day, but I was not lucky enough to see this phenomenon. Below, a great sea-lion basked in the sun. Having been chased off a beach by a sea-lion in the Catlins, I gave him plenty of room when I walked back down the beach. I sat in the sand, and finished speed-reading a short strange novel by D. Adams (Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency) – author of Hitchhiker’s Guide… which included, among other things, time travel, some very early models of Macintosh computers (!), and the albatross of Ancient Mariner fame. Then I walked (by now, trudged) back up the steep sand dunes and sheep pastures to reach the “Highcliff Road” back down into Portobello.

I tried my luck at hitching a ride, as I was getting weary (it was still very hot and I was down to a few sips of water) — but did not get a ride until I was about 2 kilometers from Portobello. A woman picked me up and said I could ride in the back of the car, with her son. I asked him what he’d done today, and he kept me entertained with a litany of all the various errands on which he’d accompanied her, the names of his pets, etc. She dropped me in Portobello, where I decided to celebrate my long day with a liter of ice-water and a small cold beer at the Portobello pub. I sat under the shade of an umbrella, and was soon joined by a couple from British Columbia. We got along quite well, and had a lovely conversation about our various impressions of New Zealand. They love it so much they are coming back in November to spend “5 MONTHS” — a notion which left me completely envious. They gave me a lift back up the harbor to my hostel, just to be nice.

Now I am heading to Christchurch on the Atomic Shuttle bus, for a final night’s stay at the Windsor Hotel, since they were so wonderful to me when I was heading to/from Antarctica. I leave for CONUS (Continental United States — an Antarctic program acronym) tomorrow afternoon (1-25-06). Sniff. Tomorrow afternoon I’ll pick up my Antarctic duffel from storage, and then — well — it feels like I should be getting my orange ECW bags and suiting up in my parka, and catching the next transport plane back down to the Ice!

At the risk of sounding greedy: I’m not really ready to stop traveling! At every hostel, I seem to meet 20-year-old girls who are heading off to see the world, with “working visas” to spend a year in New Zealand alone. I could keep going, letting each day unfold as it wishes. This time of travel has been so incredible — so good for my spirit — and so mind-expanding — in short, I have felt truly “alive” during the last several months.

Heading out for the Otago Peninsula in a minute, but before i catch my bus here are just a few images from my recent week in Doubtful Sound and the Te Anau area.

An image of Doubtful Sound from someone else’s travel log:
http://www.travelblog.org/Photos/15531.html

Fiords (from the Wikipedia – includes image of Doubtful Sound as an illustration)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fjord

Doubtful Sound is the fiord at the far left upper edge of this map, accessible only by busride from Te Anau, then boat over Lake Manapouri, then another bus ride over an incredible pass on a gravel road subject to dozens of waterfalls which appear whenever the rains fall…

!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!! !!!!!! !!!!!! !!!!!!!! !!!!

Having just returned from an overnight excursion out to Doubtful Sound (actually, it is a true glacier-carved fiord) in the fiordlands of southern NZ, I must say that the experience left me nearly *speechless* — and not just me, but everyone who was on the trip with me. We all parted just raving about how fantastic it was. I can’t say enough great things about the landscape, and the company (Real Journeys) who handled every detail with grace, intelligence, and care. Doubtful Sound (famous for getting 7 METERS of rain per year) is one of the most beautiful landscapes I have seen, and certainly ranks up there with any famous National Park in the U.S…. and it gave us a variety of weather, from snow to downpouring rain to light drizzling mists to gray driving sleet, strong winds, and brilliant sunshine!!!! We saw fur seals, and bottle nose dolphins (twice), not to mention the most magnificent terrain. I was awe-struck throughout the trip. My internet extortion-device says I have already raved about Doubtful Sound for almost 15 minutes and it will soon go poof — $2 internet. Ugh. Must send now.

Spending an extra day in Fox Glacier village was by no means all bad. I hopped a sunset bus to Lake Matheson and got great shots from the scenic lake hike. Since I had the time, I sat down an drew out a small calendar of my remaining days in NZ, which was a bit unsettling, as they are ticking away. I made a list of all the places I’d hoped to see, and all the things I’d hoped to do, and then I tried to match the wishlist to the blank days. In the end, I had to totally cross out several things, but it helped me prioritize my travel desires, and I used the open afternoon to call and make advance bookings with various hostels, one adventure booking agent, and 3 different bus companies. My planned and confirmed bookings will keep me going for the next week — the remainder of my trip, really, gulp — and only the last day or two are a wee bit unjelled.

I am writing this note from Queenstown, adrenaline headquarters of the South Island. No, I am not going bunjy-jumping (from a bridge, from a gondola, etc), or sailing, or jet-skiing, or whitewater rafting. I feel very tame compared to many of the barely-twenty-somethings (and I wonder — where exactly do they get the money for all these activities, as fleetingly-adrenal activities can cost between $75 and $500 per person???).

My itinerary is intentionally much more simple and quiet. Choosing the route less traveled, I am catching another dawn bus to Te Anau, where I will wander around untill catching a coach over Manapouri to Doubtful Sound (Cook saw the sound, but doubted there’d be enough wind to sail his ship back out if he went in…). The coach will bring me to an old excursion vessel for a tour of Doubtful Sound, and I’ll go overboard for kayaking as well. It’s an overnight cruise — we sleep in berthing on the ship. The second day includes a tour of a vast underground power-plant at Manapouri, and then I’m staying in Te Anau for the night at Lakefront Backpackers. Another tour coach bus will pick me up from there — heading south along the Southern Scenic Route, and down to Riverton (0ldest settlement) and Invercargill, then on to the Catlins. I will overnight in Curio Bay among fossilized tree stumps on a wild ocean beach, with lots of wildlife and vistas. The next afternoon I’ll continue to Dunedin and spend the night in an old mansion converted to a hostel, then I’m off to the Otago peninsula in search of Albatross (as well as seals and penguins). From there I head back up to Christchurch.

“Change your socks, change your mood” folks like to say, on Antarctica. Well, it works in New Zealand as well! After feeling real miserable for a while about not flagging down my bus, I changed socks, changed shoes, donned my pack and plodded off to claim a room at the only cheap lodging in town with vacancy: a run-down looking motel I’d seen next-door to the (exquisite but full) “Ivory Towers Backpacker” hostel. It looked like rain, and the valley was full of gray clouds. I wanted to know I had a bed for the night.

The close comparison with Ivory Towers did not help. The first thing you saw, approaching the budget motel, was peeling paint on the “Budget” sign, overgrown vegetation, and an old atrium cafe seating area jammed with junk and old mattresses and furniture. It reminded me of a review I’d read for another motel, located just south of the glaciers: “It has seen better days, and those better days have probably seen better days.” I booked a room, but couldn’t pay right away, as the office phone was on the blink, so the VISA card reader wouldn’t work….

I dropped my pack, locked my room, and took the obligatory tour of the facilities. There was a small heater on the ceiling of my cell, er, room, which might be nice if it got cold and damp. All the rooms shared one set of bathrooms and the showers took coins. The “communal” kitchen floor was sticky and the counters were lined, strangely, with cast-off restaurant equipment and several giant meat slicers of the size one might find in a real butcher shop. Not that your average backpackers would need such a device, but hey. I saw that the stove had 2 “not working” signs on the burners, there were some dented and blackened frying pans in a rack, and there was a giant puddle of water on the floor. I opened the cupboard marked “DISHES” and removed the (only!) tea-cup, to make myself a cup of licorice-lemon tea — then realized that the water puddle came from the electric teapot, which clearly had a major leak underneath. I tucked the dry teabag back into my pocket, and decided to splurge on a coffee downtown. On the upside, I had noticed that the motel’s bed was made up with real cotton sheets which felt both crisply clean and wonderfully soft, as only old cotton sheets can feel.

It was sunny again, when I walked outside. In the West Coast of the South Island of New Zealand, the weather changes every time you check the sky. In Fox Glacier village alone, there are a half dozen companies using helicopters to fly tourists back and forth (and up and onto) — they deal with groundings by putting small signs on the sidewalk that say “YES, WE ARE FLYING,” signs which appear and disappear throughout the days, as the clouds down-valley of Mount Cook and Mount Tasman change their dispositions and directions.

Walking across the parking lot of the motel, a small delivery truck veered towards me. I looked up, trying to decide which way to yield, and saw the truck’s driver grinning and waving. “There you are!” he called out. “We’ve been looking for you!” It was Rainer, who I’d met only twice, for a minute or two each time, back in Okarito.

Rainer and his wife Cindy ran Kotuku Lodge, and handled the bookings for the historic Okarito schoolhouse hostel, too. He explained that Cindy “found my book” and they thought they might be able to get it back to me before I left the area. My Lonely Planet, Customized Edition!!!! Rainer had seen me, standing on the road in Okarito the day before, hitching out, and had asked which way I was trying to go. I had said “probably Fox” and so they’d called the only respectable backpackers (Ivory Towers), looking for me, to no avail.

It’s the thought that counts, I told him. Okarito was a long drive away, but it made me feel better to know that someone had found my lost guidebook, and been so thoughtful as to try to contact me — I was having a bad day, I told him, explaining about the bus, but suddenly I was feeling much better. I thanked him — but he insisted they could get the book back to me! Cindy will drive to Franz Joseph tomorrow, and she’d give it to someone who’d put it on the Atomic Shuttle bus, and so it would be on the bus when I got on in Fox Glacier. It would work, he said, and smiled, and I thanked him again.

NOTE: And it did work — when the Atomic Shuttle stopped for me today, the driver said “Kathleen – I’ve got a package for you.” There it was — not just my Lonely Planet but an envelope full of postcards I’d tucked into the cover, and my NZ map. Remind me to post something for the whole world to read about how great the folks in Okarito are!!!! It really was a terrific little retreat from the “main road” route of the west coast. I’d want to stop there again!

View from the Trig, at Okarito:

Fox Glacier

The day went well, for a while. I had to get up incredibly early to catch the Intercity bus from Franz Joseph to Fox Glacier village, but the ride was beautiful, even if I was half awake. At some point last night, I realized my Lonely Planet guidebook and a couple of favorite maps (tucked inside the covers) were missing. I had it before Okarito, I knew, so I wondered where I might have left it by accident? My guidebook contained lots of wonderful notes and was well-thumbed and annotated, including comments and *** ratings penned in the margins by my friend Ann from Antarctica, on the flight from the Ice. Sigh. Let it go, I told myself.

Part of me was surprised that anyone would have swiped it. It had been cut in half with a pocketknife and the cover reattached with duct tape, creating a very rare “South Island Only” Edition. Still, the loss left me feeling a bit discombobulated, and without my notes.

Wandering through town, I found first that the sole local hostel was FULL, and then found the local shuttle bus (takes folks closer to Fox Glacier) was sitting empty on the main street. I asked the driver if I might have time to catch the shuttle out to Fox, hike out to the glacier, hike back, and catch the late morning Atomic Shuttle down to Queenstown? He said “Aye” — he’d make sure. I got on, and he drove me — just me — out to the glacier, and told me exactly when he’d return to bring me back from the carpark to town. I power-hiked out to meet the glacier, hiked back down, and sure enough my driver had returned for me, as promised!

I was ready and waiting for the bus. But it never stopped. I’m not sure if the bus driver had a visual impairment, or if he was distracted by the heavy traffic and did not see me jumping up and down and waving my hand with money in it, but no luck. The bus headed down to Queenstown without me.

I wept for a while, very frustrated (and with adrenaline still pumping around inside from my fast hike out to the glacier and the impact of the ice-carved impressive terrain). I resigned myself to spending the night in Fox after all.

Franz Joseph Glacier:

Today I raised my thumb again, and snagged a ride back down the Okarito Road with a lovely couple from Brazil who’d rented a “camper” (tiny rental motorhome) in Christchurch and driven over Arthur’s Pass down to Okarito. I would have been happy with a lift back to the Forks, but they were heading down to Franz Joseph, as I was, so they gave me a ride all the way. We hit it off immediately — I had seen them investigating a “homemade” camper parked on the road down by the hostel (it looked like a wooden Swiss Chalet built on the bed of an ancient truck, complete with a backporch). The woman was very interested in photography and kept making her husband stop so she could take pictures, which made me smile, and the husband was a pilot and had once flown a small plane to the Antarctic Peninsula! They ended up giving me a ride up to the parking lot for hikes to the glacier itself — we hiked up the riverbed to see the terminal face of the Franz Joseph glacier this afternoon, and then we grabbed lunch together before they took off to the next town to see the Fox Glacier. I’ll see Fox tomorrow. Tonight, I’m hunkering down in Franz Joseph, and typing up this message in a big red bus parked along the road just south of my hostel, whose interior has been converted into an internet cafe.

My mind is back in Antarctica, partly because we spoke of it over lunch. It was so incredible to see both a crevassed ice face AND rich green rainforest surrounding it. The Franz Joseph flows down a long ways, and is heavily serac’d, and great blue ice crevasses like a million wrinkles. The face melts down and is more gradual than the abrupt terminal faces I saw on glaciers in the Dry Valleys. The Franz Joseph face contains an archway of blue ice — underneath which is a great cave, like an entrance into the underworld, with a subglacial river pouring out, in angry torrents, water the color of grey milk. The Franz Joseph is a real mover – over 1 meter PER DAY. I can hardly believe this. It would be almost possible to SEE a glacier move, at 1 meter per day. The moon (full last night, but obscured by storm clouds) may rise clear tonight. Tomorrow I’ll move on at dawn to catch the early bus to Fox Glacier.

Fox and Franz Joseph Glaciers

http://www.glaciercountry.co.nz/

Franz Joseph Glacier – History

http://www.franzjosefglacier.com/history.asp

Franz Joseph Glacier – image showing valley and glacier riverbed

http://www.slrobertson.com/images/new-zealand/pano/slideshow/photo-8.htm

Franz Joseph Village

http://www.slrobertson.com/images/new-zealand/pano/slideshow/photo-10.htm

Why I did not pass the warning signs! *

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=1&ObjectID=10363304

(* Yes, I have seen glaciers calving-off bits of themselves in Antarctica!) One of the other hikes to the FJ glacier is “closed indefinately” due to landslides. Even during the half hour or so that I stood at the terminal face viewing area, I saw various small rocks and ice blocks tumbling down from the face of the glacier. Crushed to death by a gritty blue icecube? No thanks.

“Ko to kotuku to tapui, e Tama – e”
Kotuku is now thy sole companion, O my son!
- Maori saying

Okarito? You can’t get there without a car, someone told me. Nevertheless, I wanted to get there. I called ahead and booked a room at the Royal hostel in Okarito, bought a bus ticket as far as the crossroad called “Forks” then figured I would either walk, or get lucky, lift my thumb, and get a ride down the road. It was a bit unnerving, for just a microsecond, when the bus pulled away and left me at the Forks. There was a large rusty barrel attached to a post by the highway — the Okarito communal mailbox and parcel drop. Tree frogs, songbirds and cicadas were loud all around me — a proper rain-forest lushness of sound! A colder version of Florida. In the distance, the southern Alps of New Zealand raised sharp snow-covered beaks above the green forest, hinting at storms. I dragged my pack down the road, so as to be visible only to drivers who’d turned in, heading to Okarito. As hitchers go, I’m not very assertive — when I heard someone coming, I’d raise my thumb like it was a question mark.

As it turned out, the third car that drove down the road had room — a sweet young couple from the Czech Republic who were in New Zealand on a work visa, and touring the west coast to see it up close, just like me. “We’ve needed rides too” said the young man. They drove me all the way to the Royal hostel and refused any gas money. The Royal hostel was the third building in town, I think — third of about 30. Okarito consists of a handful of cottages and homes along the “Strand” – including one tourist lodge (Kotuku), a kayak rental shop, a rustic campground by the beach, the Royal hostel/motel, and a historic 1-room schoolhouse-turned-hostel. There are 35 permanent residents, including one of New Zealand’s best-known authors, Keri Hulme, author of the Bone People and Stonefish (nope, I did not run into her). But it was wonderful to see the place through her eyes — another layer of meaning.

Keri Hulme

http://www.bookcouncil.org.nz/writers/hulmek.html

I hiked out of town, that night, following an old pioneer horse-route into the forest that dates to the NZ goldrush, when boomtowns sprang up on the coast just south of Okarito. A branching route led to a local viewing hill that is now known as “Trig” (from an 1800’s surveying team who used the local hill to get clear sight lines of the valley and the distant peaks of the Southern Alps). The Trig ascent is a long series of wooden-box steps, cut into the hillside and filled with rock, decaying and moss-covered. Climbing the Trig is easy enough — like climbing a sprawling pyramid one might find in the middle of a rainforest.

Magical. I watched the golden sun set, clouds blowing down and obscuring the alps, and finally a near-full moon rose over the pink waters of the Okarito Lagoon, spread out behind me.

The next morning I packed and went kayaking in Okarito Lagoon, in the rain. It rained for the rest of the day. The Lagoon is a huge wetland (with tidal backwaters where only salt-tolerant plants can flourish, and mountain river currents running in turbulent chalk-gray channels through a labyrinth of channels in the lagoons). At low tide, vast mudflats are revealed; at high tide, most are covered by enough water that a kayak won’t get stuck, but it’s close, in spots. It was just me and my kayak, following a water trail of well-spaced manuka sticks which had been driven down into the mud at low tide to mark the deep channel and the paddling route. The lagoon is a feeding home to the white heron (the heron breeding grounds are just north of the lagoon) and the heron is considered both rare, and sacred to the Maori. During my rainy paddle I saw one great white heron lift like a kite from the reeds of an island, and slowly flap away into the gray rain.

Kotuku – The White Heron

http://www.nzbirds.com/birds/kotuku.html

It was intensely quiet out in the Lagoon. I also saw black shags, a spoonbill, black swans, and a pair of tiny black ducks, very shy, which darted in and out of the reeds.

My route led up into a lagoon finger where the water ran blackish red at the center — the effluence of a stream, dyed with tannins from the dense coastal forest trees. The edges of the creek were steep, moss-coated ravines hanging with ferns, and at times the water was perfectly still, a blackened mirror where every branch or fern-frond that dropped and dipped below the surface of the water was reflected, symetrically, creating green “God’s eye” weavings at the point where Real and Reflection met.

Okarito Nature Tours (kayaking)

http://www.okarito.co.nz/

Okarito was a gold rush town in which the “rush” did not last long. It had a real wharf and harbor, but apparently the ships had to struggle to enter the lagoon, navigating strong currents, the wild shore of the Tasman sea, shifting sandbars, etc. The old wharf shed is preserved as a historic building, and inside are old photos and stories and documents that hint at the wild history of the town. Some of the boats, in the photographs, are loaded with bales of New Zealand Flax fiber “hemp”, which was harvested and sent north for use in rope and other industrial needs (I’m not sure if it really was used for fabrics, as real flax fiber would have been). The New Zealand flax is an impressive plant, used for lashing together just about anything, and according to some interpretive signage I read up the coast, the Maori’s limited their harvest of the flax to taking just the OUTERMOST 2 LEAVES OF EACH PLANT, to ensure they would always have enough. I doubt that the flax harvesting in Okarito used similar restraint. In historical images, the town seems to contain no living plants — just stumps in the background and stubble in the foreground (where the flax now thrives, between buildings and the shore).

I spent the next two nights down the road, at the historic schoolhouse hostel, which was built in the 1880’s, served as a schoolhouse until the 1940’s, and reopened as a hostel in the ’60’s. The historic building was quite run down, over the years, and suffered from neglect and the harsh weather, but the “schoolhouse” was restored by preservationists in 1990, and it remains a hostel. Neat, tidy, with three-high bunkbeds along the walls.

In the two days that I was there, I met mostly German tourists: a man vacationing with his grown son (who was about my age) – and a German schoolteacher – a group of German women celebrating their friend’s 60th birthday – and a German woman with two blonde children who fought “Lord of the Ring” type battles with wooden swords. At least with wooden swords, no one dies.

Hokitika is most famous for it’s Jade shops and factories, visited by giant tourbuses which pull up and pour out tourists hungry for jade this-and-thats. This time of year, it is also famous for its driftwood.

Driftwood and Sand
http://www.westcoastarts.co.nz/artsorgs/d&S.html

I got a ride to the downtown with a sweet couple from the Birdsong hostel, and we walked down to the beach together. The Westland forecast was dreary, a long pattern of gray rainclouds dotting the coast in the newspaper forecast, but the day cleared around noon, and we spent at least an hour of the midday, happily wandering the beach looking at an art exhibit in which members of the community had created sculptures on the beach using only driftwood, beach rocks, and other trash/flotsom they found amid the driftwood. Some were terrific, some very simple — and some must have already been wrecked by the previous day’s storm and, once again, looked like random piles of driftwood.

We shared a coffee at a cafe overlooking the beach (* note above photo, showing the cafe’s inventive use of rusted roofing for a warm, rustic wainscot).  My fellow travelers decided to drive north or east to Christchurch to get away from the bad weather, and I decided to catch the late afternoon bus down south, towards Okarito, fingers crossed. I say “towards” instead of “to” because the tiny coastal village is located 13 kilometers down a small side road, and the bus doesn’t go there….