Day 13 From Okarito to Rapahoe

After just one night in Okarito, we continued driving after breakfast. Our destination today was the Breakers B&B near Rapahoe (www.breakers.co.nz), so simply 200 km along the coast heading north, at least the New Zealand north - on our hemisphere it would go south climatically. We are currently crossing the rainiest region of New Zealand and, as it should be, we want to experience the typical weather, so it rained today; at least from time to time.

On the way, we made a stop in Hokitika. I don't remember why anymore and especially after seeing the place, it is beyond me 😏. Or the other way around: If you drive around the South Island of New Zealand, you are only allowed to drive a maximum of 100 km/h. Since it is very windy on the west coast, sometimes you have to drive only 15 or 25 km/h in the switchbacks. With us, tight curves are indicated with red/white signs. In New Zealand, they are yellow/black, but there is a recommended speed before each of these curves. Very clever and helpful. In any case, we drove for ages along this one road on the east coast and then Hokitika came first with about 2,000 inhabitants, practically a big city on the South Island, where only about 1/5 of New Zealand's inhabitants live. So we visited the city and had something to eat. It is a "Jade City". Jade is mined and processed locally here. Very nice. In the restaurant, there was the Cesars salad incident, every ingredient that should actually be in there was replaced by another similar one, e.g. the croutons with whole (!) zwiebacks - unfortunately, no photo available. Then we set off again and drove to the legendary Hokitika Gorge. Allegedly, the most turquoise water ever can be found there. It was very beautiful there, but unfortunately, it had rained too much and the water was more brownish-green.

A bit further, we went hiking in Goldsborough. There was a "German Gully Pack Track" there. Of course, we had to go up there. An old gold miner's path, very steep, very mossy, very tree fernish. Everything like in a fairytale land. If a gardener would create something like this, they would say that it is simply too kitschy. When we reached the top, we went down again as a round trip on Goffs Track. Even steeper, but absolutely magical.

At the end of the day, we drove to our aforementioned accommodation (we're staying for two days) and enjoyed the view from our cottage onto the sea while having homemade pizza from the host and tomorrow the sun will shine and there will be plenty of action - rafting, glowworms, pancakes, etc.

Good night.