It was now time for us to head back up the way, we had done the main things we had in our head for the South Island and we wanted to make sure we had time to go back to the whale watching and get up to the very north of the North Island.
Through talking to people we had been told that the town of Hokitika was lovely to visit and that we should also try and see the Pancake Rocks, so we headed for them.
On the road we came across these signs. There are some really good signs in New Zealand, to the point, should we say!
There are also some lovely bridges. There are some bridges with signs saying Historic bridges and while some do look interesting and historic, others look like a new bridge has been built and they just can't be bothered to take down the old one. It is as if someone has thought to themself, I know what we can do to save ourselves time and effort, stick a historic site sign up. Why not, keeps the tourists amused if nothing else.
This was a nice bridge, by the way and I don't think it is historic, I just liked it.
To break the journey up we headed for a place called Shanty Town, it is the recreation of an old gold mining town, which were very common in this area. We really enjoyed our time there, spending several hours wandering around, we even found a bus load of Asians there and a school trip, so felt like we were back in Asia. The weather was beautiful and even though there were coach parties in, the place is so spread out you don't need to be caught up in the crowds.
This is an old shack made from corrugated metal which was in the Chinatown section, the tall bit is the chimney. It comprised of one room which had the fireplace in it. Inside there were details of the man who lived in such a shack.
Now, David has this thing about exploring and disappearing into dark places, this is him reappearing after his latest expedition!
The photo below shows one of the streets in the town, which contained buildings including a bank, a jail, a hospital, a garage, a sweet shop, a saloon, a church and much more. You can wander into these buildings which are filled with items from that time. There was an area dedicated to gold mining and another to saw mills which told stories of people of that time .
We continued up the road and after a brief wander around Hokitika which was a nice wee town we found ourselves at Pancake Rocks which is on the road heading up to Westport. . This is well sign posted and has a very grand entrance at the side of the road which we walked through, following the path until we came to the first look out. Well, I have to admit at this first point we looked at each other and said, "Is that it?" We were not impressed, but we kept going and it did get better and got more impressive. The photos don't really show all the layers clearly or the scale of the rock formations.
On the road just outside Westport was this sign for penguins, we didn't see any, apparently they come ashore at dusk so we were too early.
In our lodgings at Westport we came across this chair, could that be the real Stone of Destiny?
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