Saturday 18th August.

Big frost at Turnbull. Slept well, had brekky and got organised ready to head up the West Coast. Got away 10.am. Up the coast we couldn’t go into Ship Creek, I was so disappointed, they are doing maintenance on the parking area while things are quiet. Stopped in at Lake Paringa for morning smoko. Pretty place but not good reflections. At Hunts beach area took photo’s of the Our Lady Of The River church, this time the weather was a bit better than the last visit. Our trip up the West Coast is fine, warm and sunny so feeling pretty happy about that, the air is cool though. Went into Lake Matheson but cloud was so low on the top of Mt Cook and Tasman so decided not to waste time as we may get it on the way back down the West Coast in a few days. Went into Fox Glacier and it was good enough to get a view of the glacier, well worth the walk in, just started to rain as we were ready to leave. We stayed the night at a doc’s camp, MacDonald creek,  $6 a night here. 1080 poison signs up all along the west coast, absolutely disgusting, it is effecting the bird life, I have noticed not as many birds around at some of the camps, most unusual. They are dropping it by choppers and it doesn’t always go where they expect it to, so even into the water ways, it’s just criminal, don’t get me  better get off this subject. Did late star trails.

These top 3 images are at Fox Glacier, south Island, just the most  incredible place, the bluff is huge, the glacier it’s self is so big, when people are walking across the top they are so small in comparison. We could hear the booming going on at the face of glacier, we were standing in behind a barrier and it said we were 200 metres away from the glacier.

Sunday 19th

Very cold, had brekky and got away about 9 am. Up further we called into the Bushman’s Centre,  Pukekura, had a cuppa and just looked around, they have so much gear in there shop and some of the sign are hilarious, I have them which I will put into the gallery side of this Blog when finished. The owners are finding it hard as all the big organisations make it difficult for the wee one man band business, so we love to support these sorts of places. Popped into Lake Mahinapau before the big tourist place goes up which the earth works have already started, so this is the end of this lovely natural place. Got to Hokitika at about 1 pm, we are staying with family for 2 nights.

  Monday 20th

Had a real nice day, chatting and catching up on all the family members that I hadn’t seen for some time and other who live overseas. No Internet coverage here on my Dongal or mobile phone. Tuesday 21st,15 deg today wow, it’s hot, been awhile since I was this warm, good for drying the cloths before we hit the road again.  Stan went for a hair cut so got him to drop us off at the beach to get some shots, when Stan came and picked us up we went back to Rimu and picked up Myrna and headed off up to Dorothy falls and Lake Kanerie. This is in the Hokitika Gorge, really is a lovely place and the colour of the water at times is unbelievable.  While we were doing a walk thru the bush came across an artist that had been down the lake side painting, so chattered awhile, very interesting chap. We hadn’t eaten and all starting to feel a bit wobbly so headed home, time fly’s when you’re having fun, forget to eat, ha-ha. Had a clean up in the camper, as we are heading off in the morning for Invercargill.

Wednesday 22nd

Time to get brekky and head off, sad to be leaving these members of my family, but grateful for the time we have had, it was over due. Got away about 10 am, went into Hokitika and grabbed a few stores and trying to find a tea strainer that looks like a ball on a handle, mine broke.  Called into the Bushman’s Centre again as Don really likes my cap I bought on my way up. From there we carried on down to Ship Creek, we had decided we were going to see if we could get into the place safely, as we crossed over the bridge I could see a board walk which I didn’t know was there, so we found a safe place to pull off and went to check it out, Yes we can get down there and so we started wondering along, so beautiful and the Kahikatea’s are really magic, they call them the Dinosaur’s trees. We heard the last of the workers trucks leave and by the time we got back to the bridge we just carried on up to the beach, the reflections of the Kahikatea’s were not good as a breeze had got up and the sky was getting real dark with black clouds so we got the shots we wanted and headed back to the camper. We decided as it was getting late we would go straight thru to Pleasant’s Flat, that’s where we stayed the night, doc’s camping. We had the gas heater on tonight pretty cold.

This clock is quite a symbol for the town, Hokitika lovely place.

A very interesting place, Ship Creek, there was a ship that was wrecked here from Australia. The forest in the back ground known as Kahikatea, are also known as Dinosaur trees. They have some amazing shapes.