Turquoise river in Hokitika and Pancake Rocks in Punakaiki and a lot more!

After visiting Fox and Franz Josef glaciers, it was time to continue our trip on the West coast. There were again fantastic views on the way! We stopped at one bridge where the water underneath was turquoise again. We saw other people who had also walked on the bridge to take some photos of the river. We were wondering why all of them ran back. Well, we walked on the bridge as well and then we understood why they ran. Sandflies! So many sandflies! We ran back too!

One place we wanted to visit along the way was Hokitika George. It is a river so turquoise and milky, it's hard to believe if one doesn't see it oneself. We walked a short bit in the forest and crossed a bridge and came to the beautiful river. We had heard that there would be a lot of sandflies as well, but we seemed to be lucky. We maybe saw one. We sat on the rocks and just watched the river because we knew that it would be the last turquoise river we would see in NZ. 

We had booked a jade carving lesson in Hokitika. Well, it wasn't really jade carving but maybe a shaping/introduction to working with jade. It was only around 40 minutes and we got to play with the stones a bit. It was fun, though! We did hear later on that there would've been an opportunity to do some proper jade carving in Hokitika (1 day courses) but we found out about it too late. Next time!

Then we continued our way towards Punakaiki where we had booked three nights at Te Hui. Punakaiki is a very small township with no ATM, no gas station and no supermarket/store. On the way we saw some beautiful views again:

Te Hui doesn't have a reception but one checks in at Beach Hostel instead, which is close by. When we arrived at Beach Hostel, we saw that it was much nicer (at least on a first glance). We asked whether if there would be space there instead of Te Hui and luckily someone had canceled so we got to stay there. It was one of the best hostels we have stayed at. It was clean and peaceful and it had the best view we have had at a hostel.

The main attraction in Punakaiki is Pancake Rocks. It's a place on the coast with rock formations that look like stacked pancakes. The best time to visit is a high tide because then the ocean hits the holes in the rocks and it creates great visuals and sounds! We also saw some dolphins! They were quite far away but still, Edda's first time seeing them! 😄

After Pancake Rocks we went for a walk in the forest. It was an easy path going up and down and took around 3 hours. We were lucky with the weather and it was a nice walk between different types of vegetation, more pancake rocks, rivers, etc.

Markus and some silver ferns

In the evening we decided to do a short walk (Truman track) to a nearby beach with our roommates, Cole and Mark. The rocks were interesting and beautiful and Markus found many sea stars of different colors! While Markus, Cole and Mark went to search for crabs and other sea creatures, Edda enjoyed the early evening sun on a rock.

Later in the evening we went to a nearby cave to see some glow worms. It was a small cave and in the first part one could not stand up. When we arrived inside the cave, we could see quite many glow worms! Apparently there are quite many places in NZ where one can see glow worms for free!

Usually Punakaiki is a place where people only stay one night if even that. People go to see Pancake Rocks and continue on their journey. We stayed there for three nights. Well, we were lucky with the weather so it was a perfect three days! On one day we just chilled in hostel's yard and took a walk on the beach. Relaxing!

Cole had been on a knife making course earlier and the result was really good. We thought that we would do that as well! The course was held in Barrytown, a bit South from Punakaiki. We were 10 people on the course which was quite many actually. During the course we did feel a bit rushed because it was a one-day course and we had to get everything finished in time.

We started with a long piece of steel that we heated up in open fire and hammered it to make the blade thinner and harder. We repeated this three times and then Steven did it once (he had a bit better technique...) and we heated the blade again in open fire and then quickly put into water to harden the steel.

Then we cut the rest of the steel off and sawed handle pieces from redwood. The course organizer, Steven, helped with putting the handles in the right spots. And then - the power went out! All the sudden, when we were in the middle of everything, we couldn't continue. We still had to drive to Hanmer Springs that evening so we really hoped that the power would come back soon! Maybe in 30 minutes the power was back, pfiuf!

We had our knives at this stage when the power went out. Not quite ready yet... 

When we had put all pieces together, we put some filling to fill the possible cracks and holes in the knives and handed them over to Steven. He then molded the knives to actually look like knives with a grinder. The filling material is very toxic especially when it becomes dust while using a grinder. This is why Steven didn't want us to work with the grinder when there was a lot of toxic dust in the air. After he had done the ground work, we could still mold the knives to another form if we wanted. After that, we put some leather color on the wood to make the color pop and then we used different sanding papers and polish cream to make the blade really shiny. The end results from our group are here!