Okarito

This weekend we ventured West to Okarito, a teeny tiny town on the west coast of the South Island, pop. 30. It's about 1 1/2 hours south of Hokitika. There are no stores or restaurants in Okarito, not even a dairy. When we booked our cottage, the hosts said to make sure we bring everything we need, because there are no services in Okarito. Nothing. Nada. The closest town with gas or milk is Franz Josef, about 30 minutes further south.

the road to Okarito

So we booked this cottage (called "Kiwi Cottage") for the weekend. The host said that when we arrived, the key would be in the door and we could let ourselves in. This gave us some indication as to the laid-back nature of Okarito. We were loving it before we even arrived.

Okarito did not disappoint. It's a lovely little village with a few historical buildings, a huge lagoon, a beautiful beach, and nice walks in the bush.

Albert's Hut - Albert either lives here or just keeps his toilet here; we're not sure.

our cottage

historic hostel

We feel pretty far away from the world living in New Zealand, but staying in Okarito brought us that "far away" sensation on a whole new level. We had no tv, no radio stations, no cell phone reception. There was nothing to do but walk, kayak, and read. We walked, we read, but we did not kayak because Quinn is still a bit too little for that kind of adventure.

We walked up to the "Okarito Trig" - a triangulation point put in place by early settlers. It's on top of a hill. One thing we have learned from our walking in New Zealand is that kiwis will just not be bothered with switchbacks. Why waste time zig-zagging back and forth up a hill when you can just walk straight up? Just when I was starting to think I'd rather go back down then keep going up, we reached the top. It was a beautiful view of the Tasman Sea, the Okarito Lagoon, and in the other direction, mountains. (But we had to use our imagination to see the mountains; they were covered in low clouds.)

walking up the trig track

view from the top of Trig track

walking on the beach

the wharf

a wild friday night in our Okarito cottage

As we were told there would be no services, we were pleasantly surprised to find that the place renting kayaks was also open for coffee. It really says a lot about New Zealand's obsession with coffee: even the tiniest town on the map has its own espresso machine.

Unfortunately, it was not all fun and games in Okarito. First, there was a mosquito in our bedroom - both nights - who would not die. Worse, this mosquito waited until we were just about to drop off to sleep and then started buzzing around our nose and eyeballs. I jumped out of bed the 2nd night and flipped the lights on (much to Gareth's irritation) and smacked the sucker dead, I thought. But then just as I was dropping off to sleep again, the bzzzzzzz was right there in my eyeballs once again. I suppose where there's a lagoon, there are mosquitoes.

More seriously, there was a fatal accident along the Okarito-Forks road on the Saturday night. I put Quinn in the car to go for a short drive (a sure-fire way to get a sleepy baby refusing to sleep to fall asleep). Just a few hundred metres past the lagoon, there was a campervan on its side and a white sheet on the ground with feet sticking out of it. A sobering sight, as you can imagine. The accident made the news, as we thought it would, since tourists don't die here too often.

We also visited Franz Josef glacier on this trip, but I'll post pictures of that separately.

We were welcomed home tonight by a cheeky little 4.9 magnitude aftershock. Ahhh, it's good to be home...