From Little Wanganui, we headed north to the Department of Conservation
(DOC) office in Karamea to get a map of Kahurangi, New Zealand’s second largest
national park. We wanted to day-hike the lower end of the Heaphy Track along
the Tasman Sea. The Heaphy is one of New Zealand’s Great Walks (4-5 days from
Karamea to Golden Bay, north of Abel Tasman National Park). According to a sign
at the trailhead, Charles Heaphy, a European explorer, was guided down the West
Coast by Kehu, his Māori guide, in 1846. We stayed at Kohaihai, a DOC campground
at the northern end of the Karamea- Kohaihai Road. It was small and undeveloped,
but had toilets and potable water and cost $6 NZD per night. The campground was
mostly empty and our spot had a view of the Tasman Sea out the back windows. The
sandy beach behind us was steep, not very wide, and littered with weathered tree
trunks.
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| Our caravan at Kohaihai campground |
We walked across the Kohaihai River on a swingbridge, then
up through a grove of nikau palms and fern trees to the beginning of the Heaphy
Track. We hiked several miles on a wide, well-maintained trail past Scott’s
Beach to Crayfish Point. The DOC ranger in Karamea said that they maintained
the trail on motorbikes. The coastal range of mountains is steep and ends at
the beach; parts of the trail were carved out of the mountain, and the rock
walls were covered with ferns and small waterfalls. Ferns, palm trees, flax and
other unusual plants grow in profusion behind the beach. Rande said it looked
like a scene from Lord of the Rings,
parts of which were filmed near the other end of the Heaphy Track.
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| Rande on the swingbridge over the Kohaihai River |
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| Scott's Beach on the Heaphy Track |
We returned to the caravan late in the afternoon. Four-meter
(13-ft) waves were breaking offshore, then reforming over an inner sandbar as
1-2-m (3-6-ft) shorebreak. The swash ran up the beach and slid back down
meeting incoming waves and sending a spray of whitewater into the air. This is
as rough a section of coastal ocean as I’ve seen. The waves continuously pound
the shore creating a steady, low-frequency groan, like white noise, but deeper
and more powerful. Sitting quietly on a driftwood log, I could feel the pounding
of the waves through my body.
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| Kohaihai beach |
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| The surf at Kohaihai beach |
At high tide, the largest waves washed up the beach face,
over the sand dune and into the vegetation behind the beach. I was on the
suspension bridge over the lagoon when a set of large waves sent 1-m swells into
the lagoon. After bathing in the river, pied shags (cormorants) were drying
their feathers in the classic spread-wing pose on a driftwood log in the lagoon;
the swells washed over their log and sent them scrambling into the air.
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| Kohaihai River |
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| Wecka family |
That night, a waxing crescent moon and Jupiter were visible in
the western sky. Clouds moved in by midnight and it began to rain. Without
electricity, we had no heat and the temperature inside the caravan was the same
as outside – single digits C (low 40s F). I got up before sunrise to make
coffee. It was still raining. We had breakfast, packed up and left for the
Oparara River in search of blue ducks. The blue duck (whio) makes its home in
the swift water of mountain rivers like the Opapara (link);
it is related to the torrent duck (link),
which we had seen in the mountains of Chile. Our map showed the Fenian Track in
Kahurangi National Park running for several miles along the river.
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| Bathtub in a field at Oparara |
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| House in Oparara |
The Fenian Track was opened by goldminers, who probably gave
it its name, in the 1860s (sign at the trailhead), and later used by locals and
visitors. The trail had been cut into the steep hillside through a thick beech/podocarp
forest, which blocked the view on the downhill side. It had a tunnel-like
appearance where it had been blasted out of the granite mountain. The map
didn’t show that the track was 30 m (100 ft) above the river. The only place we
could see the river was where large trees along the trail fell downhill opening
the canopy. The sounds of the river as it spilled down a string of cascades was
loud enough to drown out the whio whistle “whio” even if they were below us.
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| Oparara River |
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| Fenian Track in Kahurangi National Park |
We hiked up to Mahoney’s Bluff (named for the contractor who
had made the track), which, according to the sign at the trailhead, had an
excellent view of the upper Oparara River Valley. It may have had a great view earlier
in its history, but when we were there, the only thing we could see was the steep
hillside across the river. A South Island robin (link) followed close by Rande foraging in the disturbed leaf litter behind her. When
we stopped at Mahoney’s Bluff, it flitted between our legs looking for insects
and worms. A birding brochure described the “bush robin” as “curious and
friendly.” Back at the caravan, we had hot soup and coffee – one of the benefits
of a caravan on a cold, rainy day. I offered Rande a choice – we could go back
to Kohaihai and spend another cold night at the beach, or head south to Karamea
and find a campervan park with powered sites; she chose warmth over viewscape
and we drove back to Karamea.
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| South Island robin |
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| Vegetation growing on a rock wall along the Fenian Track |
We stayed at the Karamea Memorial Domain Campground –
really, just a dirt road and a bit of lawn on the edge of a rugby field tucked
up against an earthen levee on the Karamea River. It was whitebait season (link) and the
dozen sites were full when we arrived. The campground caretaker said: “One
fella’s away for a few days. You can park next to his trailer to get power.”
The community building had a living room with a TV, restrooms, showers and
kitchen. Everyone seemed to know each other; most of them where there to fish
for whitebait.
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| Cow Bay |
The next morning, we dumped the gray water and sewage,
filled the freshwater tank and headed south on State Highway 67 along the
Tasman Sea, stopping in Westport to buy groceries and Crow Bay for lunch. The
coast was rough and wild. The vegetation was dense and squat, and the hills came
down to the beach. Crow Bay was a modest indentation between two rocky points.
The gravel, pebbles and beach rocks were rounded smooth by the waves. I found a
beautiful, oval, two-tone worry stone (pocket rock) that, with a little
polishing, could be set in a necklace.
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| Pancake Rocks in Paparoa National Park |
We were on our way to Punakaiki, 54 km (34 mi) south of
Westport, to the well-known Pancake Rocks in Paparoa National Park. The DOC
turned this geologic curiosity into a significant tourist attraction (link) with parking lots, picnic area, visitor center and concession businesses. Every
tour bus, and just about every car, on Highway 67 stops there. The parking lots
were full, but we found a spot on the road between two buses. We walked the paved
trail around the point stopping to read interpretive signs on the vegetation,
geology and geologic history, and ocean plants and animals. While it is
advertised as a 20-minute trail, it took us a couple hours to complete it.
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| Blowhole in Pancake Rocks |
Pancake Rocks is a crenulated rocky point that takes its
name from the thin layers of limestone, which date from the Oligocene (34-23
million years ago), stacked up to 50 m (164 ft) high. The harder bands of limestone
are separated by softer, muddier layers. Over geologic time, the softer layers
were eroded by waves and wind and compacted, creating the pancaking (link).
The sea stacks offshore, which are remnants of old volcanoes, deflected the
waves creating blowholes and surge pools. The blowholes are best viewed on a
high tide and we were there at the right time. The site was attractively developed,
but too crowded for us. We moved on.
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| Our caravan at Rapahoe |
We spent the night at a campervan park on the beach at
Rapahoe north of Greymouth. The caretaker was gone and payment was on the
honesty system – we calculated our total from a price list propped up on a
plastic chair, put the money in an envelope and tossed it over the office door.
The park was a makeshift affair; the showers were two, free-standing stalls in the
communal living room – everyone could hear you washing up. We parked next to an
old trailer that was unoccupied, but clearly lived in. I woke up in the middle
of the night and the kite-like Southern Cross was high in the sky (link).
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| The beach at Rapahoe |
The next morning, we left for Hokitika, a small West Coast town
that is home to the National Kiwi Centre (link).
It was pretty funky for a “national center.” They had kiwis, long-finned eels,
galaxiids (whitebait) and freshwater crayfish on display, but they also had
goldfish, cichlids, loaches and guppies, none of which is native to New Zealand.
A male and a female kiwi occupied adjoining, glass enclosures carpeted with
forest mulch, and filled with native plants and rocks. Kiwis are nocturnal and
the display reversed the day-night schedule so the birds are active when people
are visiting. The male was 25% larger than the female, but she was the more
active of the two. She rooted through the mulch with her long bill; the male
mostly hid in the vegetation. The caretaker broadcast bits of fruit and live
insects (crickets and grubs) over the mulch. The insects hide in the mulch and
the kiwis find them as they would in the wild.
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| The National Kiwi Centre at Hokatika |
Kiwis are small- to medium-sized, flightless birds covered
with hair-like feathers, and are related to emus and cassowaries of Australia. The
have whiskers like a cat; strong, marrow-filled bones; muscular legs; and large
feet with strong claws. At the tip of their long bill is a sensory organ that
can detect the vibration of invertebrates, including worms, snails, insects and
spiders, in the debris of the forest floor. [Note: the kiwi pictures below were taken in a darkened room lit by a red light at ISO 6400; flash pictures were prohibited.]
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| Female kiwi foraging at the National Kiwi Centre |
They evolved over millions of years
isolated from mammals (link),
which makes them susceptible to predation by introduced dogs, stoats (weasels),
cats and ferrets. There are five species of kiwis and all of them are
threatened or endangered. Only about 68,000 individuals remain in New Zealand
and the populations are declining about 2% per year. They mature at about 5
years of age and can live 25-50 years (link).
The Māori hunted kiwis for their meat and skin, and used their feathers in
ceremonial cloaks (link).
The New Zealand military used kiwis on their emblems and, during WWI, soldiers
were commonly called Kiwis (link).
The name stuck and now all New Zealanders are known colloquially as Kiwis.
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| Female kiwi at the National Kiwi Centre |
There was an amazing display of longfin eels, which are endemic
to New Zealand, in a 3-m deep, 60,000-liter (16,000-gal) tank filled with water
pumped from a well below the building. Up to 2 m (6 ft) long and 25 kgs (55
lbs), the eels can live 100 years; some of the eels in the tank were older than
that. They were fed chopped beef less than 2-3 days old (according to their
caretaker, they spit out older meat). The eels swam onto a shallow platform at
the top of the tank where people could feed and touch them; they feel muscular,
smooth and slightly slimy. They caretaker said he was bitten once, and the eel
drew blood, but it didn’t bite down. Not all of the eels ate while we were
there; they can go 4-5 months without eating, so only the hungry ones come to
the platform.
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| Longfin eels at the National Kiwi Center |
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| Rande feeding the longfin eels |
The Māori considered longfin eels a “gift from the gods” on
their seasonal food-gathering trips to the West Coast and still serve them at
special cultural occasions. Near the end of their lives in the wild, the eels leave
freshwater to swim 5,000 km (3,100 mi) out into the Pacific Ocean near Tonga to
spawn and die. Their larvae drift back on ocean currents and enter freshwater
rivers as glass eels between July and November (sign at Lake Matheson).
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| Galaxiids (whitebait) at the National Kiwi Centre in Hokatika |
A smaller tank held live galaxiids that were 7-10 cm (3-4
in) long and had been in the tank for over a year. They had the tank all to
themselves and mostly swam together, sometimes in a polarized school. Interestingly,
for an eel –like fish, they could swim slowly backwards with precision
movements of their fins. They were probably inanga (whitebait, which I wrote about here),
although they weren’t identified to species.
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| Taramakau River at Jacksons |
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| Stream in the forest at Jacksons |
We left Hokitika late in the afternoon on a side trip to Arthur’s
Pass National Park, an alpine park in New Zealand’s Southern Alps and the
country’s third national park (link).
Highway 73 connects the West Coast to Christchurch on the East Coast via
Arthur’s Pass. We followed the Taramakau River through pastures of cattle,
sheep, goats and alpacas. The mountains along the river were steep and the
pastures rose only a little above the valley floor. Mountains above the pass had
snow on them. The wide river flood plain was filled with gray rocks tumbled
smooth by the water, which was bright blue. We stayed at Jacksons Retreat and
Campervan Holiday Park, a modern caravan park at Jacksons, about 20 km below
the pass.
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| Looking west from Arthur's Pass |
We drove up to Arthur’s Pass (920 m, 3,020 ft) the following
morning. The weather forecast was for wind and rain; we got the wind (45-65 kph;
28-40 mph), but not the rain. Temperatures were in the single digits Celsius with
the wind chill. We stopped at the visitor center in Arthur’s Pass village to inquire
about hiking. We asked the woman behind the desk about keas, the only alpine parrot,
thinking we could hike up to tree line to see them. She said they didn’t fly in
the high winds, but that several keas were habituated to people and hang out at
Arthur’s Pass Store where they try to steal or beg food from the tourists. Walking
to the store, we saw two keas in the middle of the road. Several people had stopped
to take pictures. The keas walked into the bushes where they began calling. I
followed them around the buildings; they were walking and knew their way
around. Arthur’s Pass is named for Sir Arthur Dudley Dobson who, in 1864, was
tasked by the Chief Surveyor to find a route from Christchurch over the
Southern Alps to the West Coast (link).
There’s a plaque memorializing Dobson at the pass.
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| Keas at Arthur's Pass |
I set out on the Arthur’s Pass Track along the Bealey River climbing
through a subalpine, mountain-beech forest to alpine shrublands and wetlands
with great views of snow-covered peaks. In the forest, I was sheltered from the
wind, but could hear it whistling through the canopy. In the open areas where
the alpine views were the best, I was buffeted by the wind. With the camera on a
tripod, I took pictures between the gusts; one gust knocked me off balance.
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| Arthur's Pass Track in Arthur's Pass National Park |
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| Beech forest in Arthur's Pass National Park |
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| Stream along the Arthur's Track |
I turned onto the Bealey Track (link) followed it to Bealey Chasm, a narrow channel in an old-growth, mountain beech forest
where the river cascades over huge boulders. Beyond the chasm, the trail climbed
through a beech forest and ended in a snowgrass clearing. The view of Mt.
Rolleston was stunning; rising above the forest, the snow-covered peak was visible
though gaps in the clouds.
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| Forest along the Bealey Track in Arthur's Pass National Park |
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| Mt. Rolleston in Arthur's Pass National Park |
Back at the caravan at the trailhead, Rande had been watching
a kea search among the vehicles for food. Two women in a small rental car had returned
from a hike and opened the car. The kea flew over, jumped into the open trunk
and began tearing through their bags. It found a loaf of bread and opened the wrapper.
They women tried to scare it away from inside the vehicle – they were too afraid
to get out and chase it. The parrot eventually left, but not before eating some
of the bread. Keas are intelligent and curious; they can make and use tools, and
work together toward a common goal. According to the Department of
Conservation, the kea’s “…endearing and mischievous behaviour can cause
conflict with people, and damage to property especially around campsites and
carparks.” Endemic to New Zealand, their population is estimated at 3,000-7,000
and they are listed as endangered (link).
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| Kotuku Hostel at Hokatika |
We left Arthur’s Pass and returned to Hokitika where we
found the Seaview Lodge and Kotuku Hosetl on a hill overlooking the Tasman Sea. The
compound was probably built before WWII; some of the doors had glass knobs and
keyholes in the escutcheons. The dining room was furnished in 1950s Formica kitchen
tables with bent-steel-tube chairs, and the artwork featured James Dean and early
Disney characters.
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| Dining room in the Kotuku Hostel |
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| Sitting room in the Kotuku Hostel |
We went into Hokitika to do our laundry, but the laundromat did
not have hot water. Rande bought groceries while I perused a second-hand store
for warmer clothes. We bought knit hats and wool gloves and left for Franz
Josef Glacier, 170 km to the south. Most of coastal plain was pastures for cattle,
sheep and, to a lesser extent, alpacas, goats and horses. The small farms were
not as prosperous as others we’d seen east of the Southern Alps. Old vehicles
and farm equipment were left outside to rust where they died; sagging, weathered
buildings were used as garages for newer equipment. Dense forests of ferns,
fern trees and scraggly beeches infested with lichens lined the road.
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| Moving half of a house through the coastal hills |
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| Moving half of a house from behind |
We fell
behind a house on a tractor trailer where Highway 6 left the coastal plain and
climbed into the mountains. In front of the house, pickup trucks with flagmen stopped
oncoming traffic. A pickup zig-zagged behind the house replacing signs that it knocked
down. I followed the house for several kilometers before the road was wide
enough to pass. Farther up the road, I fell behind the other half of the house.
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| The other half of the house |
We found a caravan park in Franz Josef Glacier with
electrical hookups and a laundry. I walked to the Department of Conservation office
to get a trail map and then around the town. Most of the businesses – motels
and caravan parks, restaurants and bars, and tourist agencies – were focused on
tourists. I stopped at a souvenir shop advertising Māori carvings, but, like
the jade shops in Hokitika, the carvings were made by whites. One of the
carvers, a rugged man in his 30s with long hair, was doing scrimshaw on a deer
bone. He was from Tasmania. We talked about abalone (paua) (the carvers use
pieces of shell for eyes in their carvings).
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| Peters Pool on the Robert's Track in Westland National Park |
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| Rande on the Arch Creek Bridge |
The next morning, we set out on the 12-km (7.5-mi roundtrip)
Robert’s Point Track in Westland (Tai Poutini) National Park to see the Franz
Josef Glacier (link).
The track was named for George Roberts, Chief Surveyor for the Westlands
District in the late-19th Century. The first 1.5 km (1 mi) was a wide, flat
gravel track. Peters Pool, a kettle pond created around 1800 by ice left behind
by the retreating glacier, reflected the landscape on its mirror-like surface.
The trail crossed over Arch Creek on an old suspension bridge rated for a
maximum of one person at a time. Beyond the bridge, the trail, mostly rocks and
tree roots, climbed through a beech and fern tree forest. A slippery, organic
film covered the ice-carved boulders and moss on the tree roots held water like
a sponge. We hiked up the mountain for an hour with only occasional glimpses of
the Waiho River, turned silver-gray by glacial silt, in the valley below.
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| Roberts Point Swing Bridge |
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| Anchors for the Roberts Point Swing Bridge |
The trail crossed four suspension (swing) bridges, most of
which were rated for a maximum of five people at one time. The Roberts Point
Swing Bridge was the longest we had crossed in any hike. I set out with my
camera on a tripod that I steadied on my shoulder with one hand, while I used my
other hand to hold the cable handrail. The long catenary magnified the horizontal
swinging and vertical bouncing the farther I went. I needed two hands to cross
the bridge, so I turned around, went back to the beginning, packed my camera
and tripod, and crossed the bridge with both hands. Rande crossed after I reached
the other side.
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| Rande on the Roberts Point Swing Bridge |
At one point we had to climb a near-vertical wall of
boulders and tree roots. A German couple younger than us by at least a decade
had stopped at the bottom of the wall to consider whether to proceed; they
didn’t. We passed them, climbed the wall and continued on. The trail became
more rugged and steeper. Orange triangles attached to trees marked the trail;
at times, they were the only way to find it. Rande decided to turn back too;
several more miles of hiking over slippery boulders and tree roots did not
appeal to her.
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| Small waterfall along the Roberts Point Track |
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| Stairway on the Roberts Point Track |
High above the flood plain of the Waiho River, the trail
rounded a vertical rock wall. The Department of Conservation had built a wooden
stairway on pipes drilled perpendicularly into the cliff face. Guy wires and more
pipes above my head anchored it to the rock. It was one-person wide with two short
pullouts for passing. People at the opposite ends of the walkway couldn’t see
each other; if they left at the same time, they would have to use the pullouts
on the gangway. I marveled at the backcountry-engineering skills of the crews that
built the swinging bridges and walkway.
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| Franz Josef Glacier from Roberts Point lookout |
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| Detail of the Franz Josef Glacier |
The sky was partly cloudy when I began, but had clouded over
before I reached the glacier lookout. Franz Josef Glacier hung from the
mountain side across the valley. The top of the glacier and the mountain were
veiled by clouds and there were patches of blue ice on the glacier’s face. Franz
Josef Glacier is 12 km (7.5 mi) long and ends 19 km (12 mi) from the Tasman Sea.
Glaciologists believed that it reached the sea 10,000-15,000 years ago. Between
the 1940s and 1980s, the glacier retreated several kilometers. Julius von
Haast, a German geologist and explorer, named the glacier for Emperor Franz
Josef I of Austria in 1865 (link).
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| View across the valley from Roberts Point lookout |
Across the river, slender waterfalls and avalanche chutes spilled
down the mountains. Farther down the valley, the town of Franz Josef Glacier
was bathed in sunlight. A young couple from Italy joined me on the lookout
platform; I took their picture with both of their phones and headed back down
the trail. Going down, especially on slippery boulders, is harder than going
up. Twice I wandered off the trail and had to backtrack to the last orange
blaze. I was reminded of how easy it is to get lost in the mountains in bad weather.
Rande was in the caravan sketching ferns when I got back to the carpark. I got
out of my wet clothes and made a plunger full of hot coffee. The round trip took
six hours. There was a sign at the beginning of Robert’s Point Track alerting
hikers to the noise from sightseeing helicopters. We were lucky; we didn’t hear
a helicopter all day. But people who have done this hike in nice weather have complained
about the constant helicopter noise (link).
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| A family of paradise ducks |
We left Franz Josef Glacier the next morning for Fox Glacier,
about 20 km (12 mi) to the south. It was raining and the mountains were covered
with low clouds at the trailhead, so we doubled back to Lake Matheson. One of
the most photographed scenes on the South Island is the Southern Alps,
including Mt. Cook and Mt. Tasman, reflected in the lake. We hiked to the spot
where, on a calm day, the reflection is the best, but the mountains were mostly
blanketed by clouds. We returned to Fox Glacier midday, but clouds and rain had
settled in the valley, and we left without hiking up the river to see it.
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| Monro Beach |
We headed south to Monro Beach where Fiordland crested
penguins nest. I put on my rain gear and hiked through the coastal forest;
Rande stayed in the caravan. The beach was mostly fine gravel and rounded pebbles
well worked by the waves. Rocky headlands bounded the beach to the north and
south, and pillars of volcanic basalt over 40 million years old rose above the
waves offshore. This is a great place for penguins; the food-rich sea, clear
water and dense forest are home to about 30 penguins from June to December. Their
trails through the grass at the edge of the beach led back into the vegetation
where they build their nests. Adults, which usually pair for life, incubate two
eggs that are laid in August and hatch a month later. Females feed the chicks
daily. Monro Beach is near the northern limit of their range (sign at the
trailhead).
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| Volcanic basalt pillars off Monro Beach |
Visitors are warned to view penguins from a distance and not
approach them. I saw a penguin come in through the surf, walk up the beach and
disappear into the rocks and vegetation. In a few minutes, it returned to the
beach, walked down to the water’s edge, belly flopped into the swash and rode
it out into the surf. It swam among the waves in shallow water, presumably
chasing fish. It made eight roundtrips to the forest and back to sea while I was
there, each trip taking less than 10 minutes. It behaved like it was feeding its
young. I hiked back to the caravan and told Rande about it; she was sorry she
didn’t go to the beach. We left Munro Beach and drove south to Haast where we
turned off for a holiday park at Okuru. You can read about Okuru and whitebait here.
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| Fiordland crested penguin on Monro Beach |
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