Hokitika, NZ
Monday, March 2
Perfect start to a Monday! Greenstone Campground, the place we stayed last night, offers yoga in the mornings for $10/pp. Andi and I were all in since we didn’t have to arrange for a babysitter. Tory and Aden will happily sleep late in the mornings if we let them, so it was easy enough for Andi and I to sneak out of the RV and walk across the lawn to spend an hour exercising our bodies and minds.
The yoga class was held in a small outdoor tent on property. It turned out to be more of a meditation / stretching class than sweat-inducing exercise, but it still felt great to start the day with intention.
After yoga, the four of us packed up our RV and drove to the next town over called Hokitika. Hokitika is centrally located on the west coast of the South Island, and is a bigger town of about 2,000 people. Each NZ town of substantial size has an Info Center which Andi and I have discovered to be resourceful places to stop & ask about things to do in the area. Aside from hikes and kitschy kiwi wildlife centers which seem to be everywhere, it can sometimes be challenging to find “non-touristy” things to do in an area.
First things first in Hokitika — a place we’ve come to know and love: New World Grocery Store. Our RV’s fridge is the size of one you’d find in a college dorm-room which means we have to stop for groceries almost every day.
After the grocery store, Andi parked our RV across the street in a parking lot next to Hokitika Beach and we spent an hour or so strolling along the waterfront. Most West Coast beaches are rough and wild; not great for swimming, but beautiful nonetheless. Hokitika is a known artist community, and someone was creative enough to spell the city name with driftwood on the beach. Of course, it’s become a popular spot for visitors to take photos now.
Leave it to Aden to knock down part of the Letter A which had him upset because we all told him not to touch the sculpture … and then Andi snapped a picture of Aden all in a huff which made him cry. Oh, such is life traveling with kids!
There happened to be a geocache in downtown Hokitika, so hunting for that was a great diversion from the beach drama. Aden found the geocache hiding under a rock beside the sidewalk.
For lunch, Andi ordered take-out Thai from a food truck on the beach & then we took it back to the RV to eat and gather a game-play for the afternoon.
We decided to check out the Hokitika Gorge — a popular walking trail 30 minutes from town with gorgeous views of the blue-green Hokitika River. Many of the rivers in New Zealand’s South Island contain glacial flour which is finely-ground rock carried down the mountains by erosion. The glacial flour gives the rivers a vibrant turquoise-blue color.
The short walking trail meandered through the forest and then opened up to a wooden swing bridge. Tory and Aden love to run across these bridges, jumping all the way across making them swing side-to-side. It both delights the kids and frightens onlookers!
The river was a milky blue-gray color when we visited because the area had just received some rain with more in the forecast & the rain churns up the riverbed. We weren’t disappointed though! I’d never seen water color like that before. It was really unusual and beautiful.
The four of us climbed on the big granite boulders near the river’s edge for a bit before we made the trek back to the car park. I’m glad we had a chance to visit the Hokitika Gorge before the rain came.
After our hike, we drove to Links-View Holiday Park to stay for the night. Andi and I were warmly greeted by the campground owners, Kevin and Jules. The campground was super clean, had a really nice community kitchen / lounge area and even offered free activities for its guests. We arrived just in time to feed the tame eels down by the river. That’s right - more eel feedings! This is definitely a “thing” to do in New Zealand.
Kevin wheeled up in his ATV and invited the kids to hop on for a ride down to the river. Aden happily obliged while he filled Kevin’s ear with information about driving his own Razr back home.
A group of campers gathered on the dock to watch the eel feeding. The first thing Kevin did was slap a long feeding pole into the water a few times to alert the eels that he was there. These aren’t his pet eels, they live in the river that runs beside his property, but the eels clearly know the drill by now. Kevin secured pieces of ham steak onto long poles with hooks on the end and gave each of the kids present that evening a pole to feed the eels. Sure enough, a group of eels came to the surface and started nibbling the ham from the hooks much to the delight of everyone watching.
After all the eel fun, we walked back to camp and made dinner. Andi grilled a piece of fish with salad for us and the kids ate spaghetti. We chatted with fellow campers from Germany about their travel experiences and gained a few tips about their favorite destinations thus far on the South Island.
Around 9:00pm, we met up with Kevin once again who offered to take us to the glow worm dell in Hokitika. There are glow work tours advertised all over New Zealand but as Kevin informed us, you don’t have to pay to see them. They can be found on most cave ceilings, glowing only at night. Glow worms aren’t actually “worms” either — they’re tiny insects called the fungus gnat in their larvae stage. The hungrier the glow worms get, the more they glow attracting small insects to eat.
The glow worm dell in Hokitika was right off the highway, just a five minute walk up a path into a tall cave. Kevin encouraged us not to turn on a flashlight if possible, so our eyes would adjust to the darkness and make the glow worms even brighter. Tory and Aden were a little nervous walking along a trail in complete darkness, but it also made the experience that much more fun. Suddenly we saw them, and we all said WOW! Thousands of glow worms lit up the cave like Christmas lights on the ceiling. It was pretty magical and well worth staying up past our bedtime.
Tuesday, March 3
New Zealand’s South Island is divided down the center by a large mountain range called the Southern Alps. Warm air comes across the Tasman Sea and hits the mountains causing condensation and rain to fall on the western side of the range. This makes the west coast a wet, humid rainforest climate. Some parts of the South Island receive over 150-250 inches a rain/year! Today’s forecast in Hokitika called for 1-3 inches of heavy rain all day, so Andi and I had to get creative with our day’s activities.
We hung around the campground for most of the morning, slept in late, had breakfast and completed school. Around Noon, we drove our RV into town and threw in a load of laundry at the laundromat. The rain was coming down hard, so I suggested we go to a free jade carving tour being held at Mountain Jade that afternoon. Andi looked at me like I was crazy (I think his exact words were, “You want to go to a gem factory?”) but we didn’t have a lot of other indoor options given the weather. New Zealand Jade is only found on the West Coast and Hokitika is known for its many jade artists, so when in Rome right?
I found the jade tour to be very educational, and I think our rock-loving Tory Girl really enjoyed it too.
Quick stop to flip our laundry to the dryer at the laundromat, and then onto Andi’s indoor activity suggestion — the Hokitika swimming pool. It was pouring outside!
Would I have flown across the world to spend an afternoon at this local swimming pool? Definitely not. It wasn’t anything special. But, Tory and Aden had a great time swimming for a few hours while Andi and I soaked in the hot tub nearby. Bonus — we all got to take showers afterward! You know you’re living the campground life when free showers excite you.
Andi and I decided to go back to Links-View Holiday Park for our second night in Hokitika. The facilities were clean, and the owners were so welcoming. For dinner, Andi grilled a nice steak with brussels sprouts and a special batch of homemade mashed potatoes for Tory. We ate indoors tonight since it was raining in a very packed community kitchen / lounge area. After dinner, Kevin, the campground host, gave Andi some good tips about the South Island’s Glacier Country and even put us in touch with his friend who operates a helicopter glacier tour company.
No tame eel feedings or glow worms for us tonight. It was still raining outside, so we called it an early bedtime. Tory, Aden and I snuggled up to watch a few episodes of Just Add Magic on the iPad while Andi busied himself on his computer. We’re enjoying Hokitika so much, we just might stay in this area one more night. Stay tuned…
