Hokitika - Tranz Alpine - Christchurch - Happy Thanksgiving!

We had been in New Zealand almost two weeks and were pretty much out of clean clothing. Luckily, our little hotel let us throw in some laundry in the morning. We had a relatively low key morning, basically we did some shopping (Hokitika is known as the Pounamu capital of NZ - Pounamu is greenstone/nephrite jade).  We also found a small fabric shop where I treated myself to some NZ fabric (no, it has not been put into anything yet!).

Sidenote about why we stayed in Hokitika. I like to read a book or two set in a place before I go there. The tome I chose was The Luminaries, set distinctively in Hokitika during the gold rush there in the Victorian period and winner of the Man Booker Prize. Thankfully, I listened to it on Audible and didn't have to slog through the 864 dense pages in print. It was really cool to learn so much about the time and place, and I loved the cast of characters, but all the astrology stuff was supremely annoying and distracting. I wouldn't really recommend it, but I did feel like I knew Hokitika really well after reading it so it was pretty neat to be walking around in Hokitika.

Then we headed to Greymouth to drop off the trusty minivan and catch the TranzAlpine Train back over the mountains, across the Canterbury plains, and into historic Christchurch. It was great to drop off the car and not have to drive for a while.

The car drop was very, very low tech and very trusting!
Anyone could easily have fished the keys out of this unmanned station.
This is one of the things we loved about traveling in New Zealand,
we felt very safe most of the time.

An interesting mural depicting bits of the history of Greymouth.

Mike drinking OJ from a juice box - posting this BECAUSE I CAN!!! MWAHAHAHA!

The Tranz Alpine Train climbs over the mountains and through Arthurs Pass... but why let me describe it when the good folks at KiwiRail have already done such a great job? (Just read in reverse.)

Climb aboard one of the world’s most famous train journeys, between Christchurch and Greymouth. Cross the fertile farmlands of the Canterbury Plains, and enjoy thrilling vistas over deep gorges as you travel alongside the ice-fed Waimakariri River. Traverse the mighty Southern Alps, where spectacular views of the chiselled alpine landscape will take your breath away at every turn. Descend through thick stands of native beech forest to your destination, Greymouth – a great base for exploring this unspoiled region with its mighty glaciers, wild rivers and famous Punakaiki pancake rocks.

Unfortunately, though we had planned to get to the train station in plenty of time for departure, the train itself didn't. We waited several extra hours for the train. We came prepared, though, I had a Kindle and Mike had a netbook. We couldn't really even walk around much since we had all our baggage with us. 

Also, travel tip: for things like this (activities that appeal to locals and tourists alike) there is sometimes a different price plan for people in the county and people outside the country. This was the case with the KiwiRail. I saved us about a hundred bucks by using a proxy server to buy our tickets as if we were in NZ rather than the US. I was worried there would be some catch, but we had no problems whatsoever. I am a champ cheapskate!

OK, OK, enough boring stuff, time for another edition of pretty pretty pictures!

Rainy on the west coast.

Not sure it was exactly here, but Xena, Warrior Princess and other movies and TV shows were filmed along the route.

Still cloudy as we head into the hills.

Many of the small towns had their heyday when the train was used to transfer goods from Christchurch to the west coast. The towns were mostly teeny today in comparison with how big they were in the boom.

Say goodbye to the blue glacial flour water - won't see much any more.

 One of the cool things was the Otira Tunnel, a tunnel over 5 miles long and steep. It is so long, in fact, there is a door that closes and fans that suck the fumes out of the tunnel.

One of the small towns along the track. 

Arthurs Pass - the highest point on the track. People come on the train from Christchurch in the morning, spend a few hours, then return on the train. 

Right after Arthurs Pass, we went through another tunnel, and when we came out on the other side...

Pretty amazing what wonders can happen being on the right side of the mountain -
I definitely recommend taking the Tranz Alpine from west to east!

Mike finally got one of me. We realized that there was an open car at the end of the train
and spent most of the rest of the trip here!

Get ready for lots of beautiful vistas!

So much better to not have the rainy window in the pics.

We went over lots of bridges and viaducts.

The yellow foliage is awesome, but unfortunately the Scotch Broom and Gorse is non native and very invasive.

Does make for gorgeous photos! Mountains and blue sky don't hurt, either.

The front of the train headed into a small tunnel.

We are coming down from the mountains.

More hilly here, but still gorgeous!

Wish we had all the time in the world to take a bumpy ride down this road.

Sigh. Happy place.

More prettiness.

Coming down into the plains now.

Another one of us both! Good thing we took it when we did, I had a wicked allergy attack not long after.

You didn't think you'd get through this whole honeymoon without seeing at least a little kissy-face, did you?

Low enough for grazing cattle.

Out the back.

Master of all he surveys. Or not.

The Canterbury Plains west of Christchurch is known as the bread basket of NZ.

We got in really late and hopped into a cab to Fendalton House. Our stay in Christchurch was a little touch and go in the planning stage - the only specific accommodation recommendation for the entire trip that we got (thanks, Aimee!) was unavailable. Every other place seemed to be taken, as well, it seems there must have been some sort of convention in town or something. Luckily, one of the last places on the list turned out to be quite the gem and I would heartily recommend Fendalton House. I think the only reason it hadn't gotten scooped up was because there is no web site. Enter lovely Google Voice - for about 10c a minute, I called a bunch of places in NZ easily! 

I didn't mention that this day was Thanksgiving! We didn't think too much about it that day, but once we were settled in at Fendalton, we walked around looking for dinner.  We ended up at a restaurant called Buddha Stix. It wasn't very Thanksgivingy, but it was darn near impossible to find Turkey in NZ in any form. Maybe because it was spring there? Anyway, Buddha Stix turned out to be a great dinner and we still laugh about our non-traditional honeymoon Thanksgiving.

One more tidbit, on the way back, we noticed the sign for the local mall was owned by Westfield - the very same owners of the Annapolis Mall, logo and everything. It's a small world after all.

Westfield Mall in Christchurch.

Fox Glacier - Punaikaiki Rocks - Hokitika

We headed to Fox Glacier the next morning. It was still rainy but we were hopful we could trot up the path and see the glacier. Unfortunately, when we got there and had walked all the way up the accessible path, we could not see the terminus of the glacier. They don't like to publicize it, but the glacier has been retreating so rapidly that even though the DOC had just added an extension to the path, the glacier was almost completely out of sight of the end of the path. It was so so sad to not be able to see Fox Glacier. The only way to see it at this point is either by helicopter or by (paid) guided hike up onto the glacier.

The glacial melt river with a pretty waterfall across the river.

Looking down the river valley -
you can see a couple people past Mike's arms coming up the glacier path.

This was our view of the glacier.
If you click on the picture and look really carefully,
you can kinda see where the glacier comes down in the center of the photograph,
but it isn't really able to be seen almost at all.

Slightly more light - same view of the Fox Glacier.

After that, our original plan was to head north to Punaikaiki Rocks, but we considered instead going to Franz Josef Glacier to see if we could see that one better. However, since it was still bad weather and we weren't sure if we would have any more luck, we decided to stick with our original plan and head up to Punaikaiki Rocks. 

Punaikaiki Rocks is a natural formation on the west coast that is sometimes referred to as "Pancake Rocks" for the unique "stack of pancakes" formation that it resembled. It was really nice and north enough that it was warmer and sunny. It was great to get out of the rain for a bit! Punaikaiki Rocks was also pretty cool and I think we made the right call.

On the road north - finally, some sun!

All that rain makes it green!

Beautiful view out the window.

This is my kind of west coast.

So great to get into some sunshine!

Tasman Sea.

Blowhole at Punaikaiki Rocks.

Inlet

One of the more famous pancake formations.

Got syrup?

More formations at Punaikaiki Rocks.

Mike was super excited to see all the palms!

View of the Tasman going back south.

On the way back to Hokitika, where we were staying for the night, we went to the Hokitika Gorge.

More glacial flour blue water, but it was not as brilliant since it was overcast again.
Still love the color.

Hokitika gorge selfie.

We wrapped up the night by catching the Hunger Games third movie that night in a cool historic theater in Hokitika. It was fun to do something so normal as see a movie and was a good low key evening event. We were tired every day!