The Wild West Coast
Leica M10 + 50mm Leica Summarit f/2.4 | 1/1000 @ f/2.4, ISO 200
When you reach New Zealand’s west coast via Highway 6, you first hit the town of Westport which is a super small town with a population of 4,755. Wikipedia indicates the total population is less than 32,500 for the entire west coast. Bear in mind, the west coast of New Zealand stretches approximately 372 miles and there are just 4 towns with a population greater than 1,000 (thanks, Wikipedia). The Seattle Sounders routinely sell out their home matches and their average attendance for a match exceeds 40,000 fans meaning that more people attend one Seattle Sounders home match than live on a stretch of coastline that extends from basically Seattle, WA to Boise, ID.
For us, the west coast was really just a means to an end. While there are glaciers and soaring mountains and dense forested areas to your left the entire drive headed South and a dark and stormy sea to your right, our main goal was just to get to Haast where we’d turn inland and get to the destinations we were much more interested in further South. Leaving Abel Tasman, which had turned downright gorgeous with blue skies and warm weather, was tough especially knowing that the west coast was going to be a slog. The forecast was for rain for several days, which while a bummer wasn’t as depressing as it could have been as we didn’t have many things to look forward to on the west coast. Some places here and there, but none of the places we were really excited to see in New Zealand were on the west coast.
After freedom camping in a lot right near the ocean, we woke the following day to a break in the skies and a little sunshine to tease us because not 30 minutes after we’d left, the rain started. And we’d learn quickly in New Zealand that when they call for rain, they mean RAIN. The windshield wipers were constantly on (no intermittent, here) and the rain seemed like it would never stop. Thankfully, just before we reached Punakaiki the rain let up right as we approached a lookout where we hopped out and grabbed some photos of the truly rugged and wild coastline. There were rock outcroppings and formations everywhere, powerful waves crashed offshore and clouds clung to the dense green forest and created a beautiful scene that we’d been observing the entire drive. And almost as if someone was watching us ala The Truman Show, as soon as we got back into the van the heavy rain started as if on queue.
Leica M10 + 50mm Leica Summarit f/2.4 | 1/90 @ f/5.6, ISO 200
Not much further down the road, we reached Punakaiki and it’s famous Pancake Rocks. The rain let up and was just a sprinkle when we started the perhaps 1/2 mile loop to see the sea violently washing into the rocks which through some strange geological phenomenon look like stacks of pancakes, but about halfway through the loop the heavy rain started up again and we made a dash to the cafe to eat, what else? Pancakes!
Hokitika was home this night at a nice little holiday park on the way out of town to the South but not before walking through the quiet, somewhat deserted town and doing a load of laundry. We were told by several people that Hokitika was a great and charming little town and perhaps it was the foul weather (which to be fair had eased up and stopped dumping rain from the sky and was now just chilly and windy) or time of year but we both found it to be a little dull. It was charming, yes, but it didn’t seem all that different from plenty of other charming towns we visited, just perhaps a little bigger. Maybe next trip the weather will be nicer and Hokitika can put on it’s charm…
We also made the drive out to the Hokitika Gorge which was also not as great as others (including our camp host Kevin) said it would be though I’ll chalk that up to the time of year and the weather as for us it was just gray skies and the bright blue glacier-fed water was very muted and looked like any other river. The turquoise water of Abel Tasman might have tainted our view, too, and a set a new bar for beautiful water.
The following day we made the push to Haast in driving rain and wind. We intended to stop at Lake Matheson or to Franz Josef Glacier or Fox Glacier to break up the drive with a nice hike but none of them were visible because of the rain and the gray skies. We were a little grumpy about it all but pushed on to Haast and found a little holiday park with power to plug in our space heater as the temperature had dropped quite a bit and we made pasta and sausage for dinner and played a nice game of Scrabble in the van. The crappy weather had the unexpected bonus of making us really fall in live with the van life as we looked forward to cool night and getting all snuggled up in bed and listening to rain pitter patter on the roof of the van.
All in all, I feel like we got what we expected from the west coast. It was beautiful the entire drive, no doubt, with the most rugged coastline you could imagine and although the rain prevented a stop on the 2nd day for a hike and maybe made Hokitika Gorge not as WOW as it could have been, we always knew this stretch—even if it was gorgeous—was just a means to the end and the unexpected bonus was that we got to eat pancakes AT Pancake Rocks.
Leica M10 + 90mm Leica Elmarit-M | 1/1500 @ f/5.6, ISO 200
And almost as if on queue like The Truman Show directors had continued following the script, the following morning when we woke up there wasn’t a cloud in the sky looking East and the soaring mountains we’d only seen the bases of with hints of snow atop them hidden by the low cloud cover were right there and as epic and snow-capped as we imagined. With the mountains calling us East, we fired up the van giddy with excitement knowing that the main event of our trip was about to begin with Wanaka just a couple hours away…