Hokitika

Friday was Canterbury Anniversary Day, a public holiday for those of us living in Canterbury.  (All the provinces have their own anniversary day, which is their special day off work and no one else's.)  Since it was a 3-day weekend, we decided to get away.  We had not gotten away for some time, and considered we were well overdue.

Deciding where to go was a challenge in itself.  We wanted to take both the boy and the pup - this would be a holiday for the whole pack.  This means we (1) need a bach/holiday home that allows pets, and (2) need it to be within a reasonable driving distance.  We wanted to go far enough away that we felt "away", but not so far that Quinn had a meltdown in the car.

The west coast is perfect for us.  It's about 3 hours by car, with a perfectly placed tea/lunch/potty break halfway there in Arthur's Pass.  And I was able to find a cheap 3-bedroom holiday home in Hokitika, about a block from the beach.  All good.

So you expect a bach to be "rustic" and this one certainly met expectations.  I think the house was quite possibly made of cardboard.  Not that it blew over or leaked or anything, but you could see seams in the walls and it just didn't feel altogether solid.  But that's ok; it was shelter.  And it had a mighty heating device:

Provider of heat

This monster is a "multi-fuel burner" - it burns wood and coal.  Even though it's late spring here, we fired this baby up our first night in the bach.  There was some smoke.  The smoke alarm sounded.  We had to open all the windows, and the back door.  It was good fun.

Incidentally, I never saw such a thing before moving to New Zealand, but wood burners are quite common for heating houses here.  Lucky for me, Gareth comes from a country that is also into archaic forms of heating and was able to work the thing. 

So we've never heard anyone rave about Hokitika or anything, and the west coast in general is kind of the butt of a joke most of the time.  I guess that's because there aren't many people who live there.  It's kind of the wild west of New Zealand.   But despite this (or maybe because of it?) Gareth and I are really drawn to the place. 

We were a bit slack with the camera during this holiday and didn't take any pictures of the town itself.  Imagine a small, tidy town, situated alongside a beach, with a cute clock tower in the middle.  That's Hokitika.  No McDonald's or KFC to be found here, but it does have a Millie's Cafe (good homemade almond slice!).

On Saturday, we took a drive to see some of the sights.  There was a helpful map in our bach that highlighted all the local attractions.  One of them was called the "Kowhitirangi Incident Memorial".  This piqued my interest.  A memorial for an "incident"?  Tell me more.  We included this on our brief itinerary.

Gareth had heard that the Hokitika Gorge was also worth a look, so we planned to stop there as well. 

Off we went.

Driving around westland is awesome because there is almost no one else on the roads, and when you do see someone, they usually wave hello.  We got waves from other drivers and from one cyclist.  Usually they wave as you pass each other coming out of a one-lane bridge, as if to say "Thank you for yielding and saving us both from a head-on collision while crossing this crazy narrow bridge, mate!"

These are the kinds of things you see while driving around westland:

farmy

rural rugby pitch

We got to the Incident Memorial and accidently drove right past it.  One quick 3-point turn and we were there, ready to learn about this Incident. 

Turns out the Kowhitirangi Incident involved a mass murder in 1941.  A guy named Stanley Graham went nuts and shot 7 people.  There was a huge manhunt for him which lasted 12 days.  There's a plaque at the memorial that tells the whole story, which we read with interest.  If you want to learn more, you don't have to travel to the west coast of New Zealand; you can just read about it here on Wikipedia.

Having had our fill of information about the Incident, we carried on to the Hokitika Gorge.  It was quite nice.  Here are some photos:

"maximum capacity 6 persons"

Isn't it pretty?  It's that same impossibly aqua-coloured water we saw at Lake Tekapo.  Something to do with glacial run-off.  The result: Hokitika Gorge puts the gorge in gorgeous :-)