Gorge-ous Hokitika and Brilliant Beach Art

Tuesday 27 January

Wooo hoooo! Summer finally arrived - if only for a day! Russ worked, Nickie & Louis swam and I walked around the nature reserve by the quay. A lovely walk around the nature sanctuary lake - spotted mallards, grey ducks, pāpango diving ducks, piwakawaka, tui, gulls and a cone!!! Late morning we packed up and left for Hokitika “a cool little town”, just down the road, where we squeezed into a corner of the NZMCA.

We had lunch at the campsite then headed into the hills, where sadly it was a little less sunny, to see the gorgeous Hokitika Gorge. We were amused by the matchy matchy dressing of one pair - these two German girls clearly got the black top, brown trews memo!!!

Two of us were mad enough to take a cold plunge in the icy aquamarine waters - and not the two you’d think!

The sunshine that had eluded us at the Gorge, had not really made it inland - but created a fabulous misty, rainy grey atmospheric landscape over the hills on our way back to the coast.

Back at Hokitika, the sunshine prevailed and we packed up dinner ingredients and went out to the beach where the Driftwood & Sand Festival sculptures were mostly still standing from the weekend. We missed the actual competition - but most of the entries were still on the beach… until the next West Coast storms take them out! This annual competition is so much fun with such fabulous, creative, crazy & impressive temporary installations created from the beach's natural resources. There were lots of funky creatures including a log full of kiwis, a chimp swinging from a tree, a flying heron, a googly eyed jelly fish and a highland coo with an overbite!

So much fun exploring all the creative endeavours and we particularly loved the sea monster that won the judges’ and the people’s vote. He was glorious and created a huge impact - especially later at sunset. The NZ Anagram map made of driftwood kept us guessing - many were simple but some of the signs took a bit of extra thought.

Russ BBQed the lamb burgers on the Weber in the boot of his Ute, I had chopped up lettuce, tomatoes, fried some onions, cut the cheese earlier and we had a DIY burger buffet overlooking the beach & estuary. The bunny hopping past casually caught our attention - we watched as he disappeared all the way up the esplanade, and I am pretty sure he was the same one we saw later up by the Hokitika sign!

After dinner, we wandered back towards the main town area and the iconic HOKITIKA driftwood sign (now accompanied by a Waitaha sign celebrating the original iwi of the area), watched the bunnies hopping around like they owned the place, petted a wandering pusskin who I decided was a Hokiti-Cat, then strolled back again as the sun set - what a glorious end to the day ❤️🧡💛