Driving the South Island’s West Coast, New Zealand

After a lovely few days in the sunny Abel Tasman National Park we set off early, after some birthday pancakes, for the West Coast. This is one of the wettest areas in New Zealand and the world. Yay! Haha. But we were quite lucky, to be fair.

Our stops along the West Coast were Westport, Hokitika and Franz Josef. My two favourite activities in New Zealand so far were on this section of our trip – tubing through glow-worm caves and hiking across the Franz Josef Glacier!

Westport

Things to see here:
– Glow worm caves.
– Seal colony.

This is a tiny little town with not a great deal there, so we only stayed one night. The main thing we stopped here for was to do the caving and tubing with glow worms with Underworld Adventures, in nearby Charleston. This was AMAZING! It was a four-hour trip that included a rainforest train ride, caving, and drifting through a cave on a river with no light other than that provided by millions of glow worms. Read my post on this activity here! 🙂

It was raining the first day we were there and overnight, but it didn’t matter too much as spent most of it underground or in the water anyway! The rest of it we spent stuffing our faces at the Dennison Dog in Westport, which was a quiet place but delicious food! Somehow I also beat George at pool three times here, what a loser. Haha!

We were lucky enough to wake up to a beautifully sunny day the following morning. So we headed just outside Westport to Cape Foulwind for a little wander down to see the fur seal colony! You can’t get close to them, they chill out on a rocky headland, but the lookout is just above them and it’s so lush to watch them shuffling about! There must have been at least 50 of them down there, sunbathing on the rocks, diving into the sea and chasing after each other. According to the information signs, we were there at the time of year that the pups are being weaned. But I saw a couple feeding from their mothers and hopping about. They were so little and cute! November/December is when they’re born so they must be tiny then! As they were quite far away, I didn’t manage to get decent photos sadly.

Hokitika

Things to see from here:
– Pancake Rocks at Punakaiki.
– Woodland glow-worm dell.
– Hokitika Gorge.
– Arthur’s Pass & Devil’s Punchbowl waterfall.

We also only spent one night in this town, but it was a really lovely seaside town. And it’s also fun to say, ha! The drive here from Westport was absolutely gorgeous, especially as we had such a clear and sunny day. The rugged coastline with such blue waters and the odd apostle sticking out of the sea reminded me a lot of the Great Ocean Road in Australia. It was stunning! The mountains started just inland from the sea so the scenery along the way was amazing, with ocean on one side and mountains on the other.

We stopped off at the tiny Punakaiki on the way to see the so-called Pancake Rocks. These are basically rocks that have been weathered and eroded in such a way that they look like piles of pancakes! Very cool to see! The walk to see it only takes about half an hour so it’s definitely worth checking them out if you’re driving past. The sweeping views from here along the coast were gorgeous, too.

When we got to Hokitika we had a lovely evening watching the sunset over the sea and then headed into the glow-worm dell in the forest. This is well sign posted at the northern end of the town and it’s just a five-minute walk off the main road. It’s only a little dell but there were hundreds of glow-worms twinkling away at us from the bushes. So cool!

The next day we headed out of the town for the half hour drive to Hokitika Gorge. The river here (main pic) is so, so blue, it’s surreal! The milky blue colour is a result of rock flour from thousands of years of river bed erosion mixing with glacier water. Pretty awesome! We spent a little while here taking in the strange beauty of the place from the various lookouts.

Then we headed up into the mountains to Arthur’s Pass. We were a little worried we wouldn’t be able to see much as rain was threatening, but it was worth the risk. It was about a three-hour round trip from Hokitika and there was a fair amount of rain on the drive up and back, but we were very lucky to have sunshine while we were actually at Arthur’s Pass. The pass is basically just a road that winds through the Southern Alps but it’s absolutely stunning, even with a few clouds covering some of the mountain tops. The scenery is just so dramatic with the tall mountains and waterfalls here and there. We also saw a few kea birds at one look out! These cheeky birds are the world’s only mountain parrot and are highly intelligent, but also endangered with 5000 left in the world, so it was awesome to see them! Even if they were trying to tear the rubber off our wheels!

A must-see in this area is the Devil’s Punchbowl waterfall. It’s a bit of a walk to see them with around 300 steps to climb across the whole journey there and back. But as always, it’s so worth it. The Falls cascade down a drop of 131 metres – it’s epic!

Franz Josef

Things to see here:
– Heli hike with Franz Josef Glacier Guides
– Kiwis at the wildlife centre
– Panoramic view from the Okarito Trig Track

We had only planned on staying two nights in Franz Josef to allow us to do the glacier heli hike. But we had torrential rain on the day we’d booked and high winds the following day, so it was cancelled twice and we ended up staying four nights. It was third time lucky, though, and absolutely 100 per cent worth the wait, it was incredible! It is very weather dependent and our guide said 40 per cent of heli hikes have to be cancelled. So I would definitely recommend setting aside a few days to spend here so you can do this amazing experience. It was definitely one of the best things I’ve ever done, so it gets its own post – read it here! 🙂

In hindsight, it was a good thing that the heli hike got pushed back, as it gave us the chance to explore the area. The first day it did not stop raining so we spent most of it in the van using the campsite’s free wifi. But cancellation day two was sunny despite the wind, so we got out to explore a bit. We did the 1.5hr return walk to the foot of the glacier, which was a lovely route through the valley alongside the river and past some waterfalls. Owing to safety, we could only get as close as 750 metres to the glacier, but it was still epic to see it! After that we drove 15mins down the road to the nearby little town of Okarito. From here we took the Trig Track, which was another 1.5hr walk. It took us an hour of actual walking, but we spent a good half an hour at the top in absolute awe of the view! You could see the ocean on both your left and right with the rainforest in between running right up to the snow-capped mountains. You could even see the Franz Josef glacier! Truly amazing. It was well worth the 40 minute climb, which I admit was a bit of a mission. Best place I ever ate a cereal bar that’s for sure!

On our rainy day, thanks to BookMe, we did get cheap entry to the wildlife centre across the road. To be honest, there isn’t much wildlife other than kiwis. As we’d never seen a kiwi and, as they are endangered and nocturnal, aren’t likely to – that was great news for us! We saw two rowi – a very rare type of Kiwi. They were so funny and cute to watch scurrying about. One even reached up and tried to peck my fingers ha! The centre runs a project to incubate Kiwi eggs, hand raise the chicks and release them into the wild once they’re big enough to stand a chance against introduced predators like stoats and rats. Other than a few little dragon type lizards and some (very interesting) displays about the glacier, the kiwis are all there is to see. The full rate is $38 for entry, which is quite pricey for what you get. However, the chance to see a Kiwi is really quite special, and the money is going into fantastic efforts to keep this species from going extinct. I was still glad we had a BookMe discount mind! Ha 🙂