3/28/10 (punakaiki)

Punakaiki-Hokitika-Franz Josef Glaciers

Last night we got a torrential downpour of rain for a few hours, which wouldn’t have bothered us except we had just hung some clothes to dry from our wash. To make matters worse, our clothes in the dryer wasn’t completely dry either. So we put our really damp and somewhat dry clean clothes in a bag until we got to the next campsite. This is totally against my organization self but what can we do?! We decided to go back to the pancake rock in the morning to get some more pictures and this time we got to see even bigger blowholes. The blowholes are caused by the force of the surf hitting the sea cavern, which then sprays up into the air through small pockets in the pancake rock formation.

We then headed down south toward Franz Josef Glaciers and stopped at the i-site in Hokitika.  They have these wonderful i-sites in most towns, which are information centers that help you with everything and anything from booking trips to providing free maps to giving helpful advice on just about any topic, even where the nearest pharmacy is. I wish the states had such things because the people are really knowledgeable and friendly. We met a very nice lady who worked at the Hokitika i-site who spent about 45 minutes with us as we debated which glacier walks to do and fiorldand trips to take. She even helped us map out our entire week.

After careful consideration we decided to do the half-day Franz Josef Glacier hike tomorrow and the overnight Doubtful Sound cruise on Thursday. These trips aren’t cheap and we just dropped $700! I’m sure it will be worth it and everyone who has done it says it is amazing.

Hokitika is also known for their jade, which the Maori call pounamu (hard nephrite jade). There’s two types of jade and the ones I’ve seen are from China which is a different type of jade. On the surface it looks like there’s black specs in the jade and it’s not as pure as the ones from China but really they are just as magnificent. Jon was sweet and bought me a pounamu necklace in the shape of a fish hook which represents good fortune.

Now we are relaxing and getting ready for our glacier hike tomorrow.

Like: pounamu necklace, booking our trips

Dislike: sandflies