Day 26 Nov 21 2024

As The Pet Shop Boys said: Go West

That was what we were gonna do. Follow the Buller River west, all the way to the Tasman Sea. We rafted down part of it yesterday. Today, we were headed for Westport and beyond.  Well, hopefully. At the time we set off, SH6 was closed just before the Haast Pass due to a land slip. Still, the indications were that it would probably be cleared by the time we got there. Otherwise, we would have to revise our plans, not that we really had a fixed plan.

We were almost delayed by a place called ‘Dust and Rust’. Diane does love a junk shop. It was “unfortunately” closed.

But first, we decided to visit the Buller Gorge Swing Bridge. We went under it yesterday and thought it would be good to walk over it today.  It is about 110m long and hangs 19m above the gorge. Walking across was an interesting experience. I am not too keen on heights. The walkway is open mesh.

After our swing Bridge excursion we carried on down the Buller to Westport.

We stopped in Westport because we needed to buy groceries and have lunch. We found a couple of interesting municipal buildings

After our stop in Westport we headed south to Punakaiki and its pancake rock formations. A good explanation of the geology and the origin of the phenomenon are given in the link above. We found the rocks and the interaction with the waves fascinating.

The sea was running quite high that day which definitely added to the spectacle.

On our way back to the van we ran into a Weka.

We decided to press on further south before we stopped for the night. We found a campsite in Hokotika which seemed to meet our requirements.