Day 5 - Nelson to Hokitika

We stropped in three spots. First, the Buller Gorge Swingbridge which crosses the Buller River and is near a fault line where there was a big earthquake (7.8 on Richter scale I believe) in the 1920s. Also a centre for gold digging on the west coast. From there we drove through to Cape Foulwind to do a hike. However, we hadn’t picked up lunch and by the time we got there we were starving. There was pretty much nothing on the road so we ended up eating a really nice lunch at this pseudo fancy place called Bay Café. Only house on the bay. I had a white bait (local fish) burger with some Kumara (sweet potato-like) vegetable fries. Drank an Aussie bundaberg ginger beer (no alcohol). After that did a one hour walk along the coast via the seal colony – they really stink - up to the lighthouse. Third stop was Punakaiki home of the "pancake rock formations." There is supposed to be a spray of water that comes up from a "blow hole" after a wave gets sucked in and up. But I didn’t see it and it seemed like I would have had to wait for a while before seeing it. The postcards were good enough for me.


Cape Foulwind