Monday Mar 9

Travel day, heading south to Hokitika, will stay there for two nights. En route stopped in Punakaiki to have a look at the Pancake Rocks, which are very nice but quite touristy. While we were there it was very misty with a bit of rain and wind, so not the best for touring the area. Shortly after we left the area and were back on the road, we started to notice some loud squeaking coming from our van, a metal on metal noise and it was hard to tell where it was coming from. We pulled off to the side of the road to have a look, we inspected all the obvious things, everything seemed secure, so we carried on a little further…still lots of clunking going on. Stopped again and had a look in the roof box – nothing in there was amiss – then I noticed the rear crossbar on the rack had a severe downward bend in it, not touching the roof but close! I must admit, the racks they installed on the van are cheap and the crossbars are way under engineered for the task – compared with Thule racks and crossbars like we have on our Honda.

In any case, we were a few kilometers out of Greymouth, one of the bigger towns on the west coast of the south island, so when we arrived there we pulled over for a break and I called the van rental company. I was able to speak with one of their tech support folks, who had me make sure all the knobs were tight on the rack and then said he thought we’d be ok and there wasn’t much he could do for us. I wasn’t comfortable with that and did a quick google search to see if Greymouth had any sport shops that might sell racks. Turns out there were a few but none sold the crossbars separately and none had the correct size anyway. One of the shops suggested a machine shop close by who might be able to help. I was thinking along the same lines and was considering adding a piece of angle iron between the box and the existing crossbar to reinforce it. We found the machine shop a few blocks away and they were very helpful. In a matter of minutes we measured up the rack and determined the correct size of angle iron. Luckily the ubolts that fasten the box to the crossbars had enough thread to allow me to loosen them enough to slide the angle iron between the box and the crossbar. Once in place, I tightened up the u-bolts and voila, the fix made the whole assembly solid again! The nice thing was, the piece of steel we bought only cost $3.50, so in less than 1 hour we solved our problem and were ready to head to our destination for the day,…but not before rewarding ourselves with a coffee and treat.

The rest of the drive to Hokitika was uneventful and we arrived at our campsite mid-afternoon – plenty of time for a look around town before happy hour.

Tuesday Mar 10

Quite a rainstorm during the night, so lots of condensation in the car this morning. Both side sliding doors in the van have sliding windows which we open at night for ventilation, but when the humidity is high it’s not quite enough to keep moisture from building up on the windows inside the van – especially with the cooler nights we’ve been having recently.

Today, seeing as how Hokitika is the Jade capital of New Zealand, we decided to start the day with a tour of one of the Jade shops. There are a number of jade shops in the town and the one we choose is quite large. They have a small manufacturing facility on site with local crafts people sculpting jade on the premises. Interesting tour, we found out that the jade is not mined, it is found in rivers and streams and is controlled as a resource by the Maori people of the region. There are several grades and names for the different types of jade and we enjoyed learning about the stone and how it’s shaped by the carvers. There are lots of machines for cutting the stones into slabs for easier handling, but the carving is all done with electric hand tools (dremels, grinders and polishers). Very interesting tour…but we didn’t buy anything!

Next it was coffee and then on to our hike. We chose a challenging hike 20 km east of town, an interesting track that rises up above Lake Kaniere. The hike was 4 km one way with an elevation gain of 1000 metres. We arrived at the trail head, which was certainly off the beaten track, there was one other vehicle at the trail head and it belonged to a Dept of Conservation ranger. Anyway, there was a trail so we got ourselves organized and headed off. I think we did about 500 meters of walking and every step was either through mud or very wet grasses and shrubs. The vegetation was super thick and we were scrambling over wet logs and under low hanging branches. The main thing though was the mud…we decided we didn’t have the footwear for the hike. This hike would require full on hiking boots and gaiters! The other thing that made it a bit easier to decide to turn around was that the mountains were wrapped in clouds. Down by the beach along the coast, it was sunny and bright, but 20 km inland, the mountains wouldn’t release those clouds. Anyway, down we went and back to the car. We decided on another walk at a river gorge that was close by, although, somewhat tamer. It was very picturesque, but busy-ish. We did enjoy the walk and the views. After the hike we headed back to camp and Lydia went out for a beach run and I caught up on the blog.

Pancake Rocks at Punakaiki

Pancake Rocks

Hokitika gorge

more Pancake rocks

The "slip" that kept us from hiking Charming Creek

pancake rocks

farming area near Hokitiki gorge

Proud Mad Camper