Last night the weather got a little wild! We saw the storm coming across the Tasman Sea, and when it hit it was windy and hailing!

It calmed down soon after, but it was exciting while it lasted!

We woke up this morning to a washed world! The air was crisp and the ocean waves were vigorous, still carrying the energy from the storm last night. We packed up our overnight bags for our scenic ride on the Tranz-Alpine train from Greymouth across the South Island over the Southern Alps via Arthur’s Pass to Christchurch.

We got to the Greymouth station before the crowds of passengers. We walked around town and enjoyed window shopping and a drink.

Then the train arrived and we were All Aboard!

We were wined and dined in the Scenic Plus class, starting with bubbly and an hors d’ouevres plate while we rolled past the scenery along Lake Brunner (Kotuku Moana, ‘Sea of White Herons’, to the Maori).

As we approached Arthur’s Pass we spotted some new snow on the mountain tops. It really is getting close to fall here!

We had a short stop at the Pass while about half of the passengers got off and another group boarded!

As we rolled out of the Pass and into the Waimakariri River Valley we looked back at the Southern Alps.

Beautiful scenery as we passed through the Torlesse Range and into the Canterbury Plains.

We arrived at the Christchurch station at about 7pm and had a short walk to our hotel in the Addington District of town, an ‘inner-city suburb’. We settled in and wandered down the street past several restaurants until we were almost pulled into an Afghan restaurant where we ended up getting a plate of delicious smelling takeout of spiced rice, kebabs and chicken in an awesome sauce. Even though we were stuffed with the lamb dinner we had on the train, we couldn’t resist nibbling a little!

Another full day of rain today so I’ll give some info on some plants we’ve encountered. I mentioned the palm trees we’ve seen in this area, the Nikau palm, a NZ native palm tree and the southern most member of the palm family!

These trees we saw at the Punakaiki Cavern, the flowering palm we saw on the road toward the Pancake Rocks area.

The Maori made many uses of the palm, from eating flowers, berries and shoots to weaving the leaves for baskets, hats, mats and leggings. The tree is very slow growing,”taking 40-50 years to begin to form a trunk and about 200 years to reach 10 m tall. On average two fronds are shed per year leaving behind a leaf scar on the trunk which can be used to give a rough indication of age since the trunk began forming.” These trees are pretty old!

Another plant we saw on our hike along the Fox River on the Inland Pack Track is the Tutu (Coriaria arborea) “the classic poisonous plant of NZ. It is a widely distributed native species found throughout New Zealand, particularly along stream banks and in regenerating native bush…All parts of all Coriaria species are poisonous except the succulent black, soft fleshy petals surrounding the seeds (the seeds themselves are also poisonous). Poisoning is usually through eating the seeds, berries or poisonous honey.” The Maori figured this out, but still made a tea of the ‘soft fleshy petals surrounding the seeds’. “A number of people have been killed, incapacitated and hospitalised over the years from eating toxic honey.”

This is a tutu bush along the Fox River.

Here’s a huge tutu bush with strands of berries. Something eats them because we saw lots of purple colored poop with seeds in it along the trail!

The day started cold and rainy. Thank goodness for the woodstove, the only heat at this place, but very capable!Then the sun slowly started burning off the clouds until it was warm and sunny out! Enough for us to do laundry and put it out in the sun on the deck to dry!

A far different picture of the car through the window than yesterday!

We enjoyed the sun today too, dinner of pasta primavera with lamb sausage!

We’re getting some freckles!

A rainy, rainy, all-day rainy day!

Maybe the car is getting a bath!

We spent the day making plans for the future, after we leave NZ that is.

We started our day spiffing up the place for our host as she is having a realtor bring a potential buyer through this afternoon. We headed into Punakaiki to visit the Punakaiki Cavern that we saw on our walk 2 days ago. It’s easily missed as it is alongside the road with very little parking nearby. We were able to park fairly close and walk down to it.

We didn’t think to bring flashlights, our phone flashlights were sufficient, but we decided we should come back and explore further on another day!

We then drove north to visit Cape Foulwind near Westport, another place we passed yesterday. Named by Captain James Cook on his first voyage of discovery in 1770, the name was not repeated when he named Cape Foulweather in Oregon on his third and final voyage in 1778 (he was killed on a beach in Hawaii in 1779). The 3 voyages of discovery by Captain Cook are diagrammed HERE. Incidentally, all 3 voyages passed through Cook Strait between the North and South Islands of New Zealand!

We had a quick picnic lunch at the carpark at the path that led to a nearby seal colony on the way to the Cape and the small lighthouse.

A few reader boards and the signpost just past the seal colony. There weren’t many seals in attendance, maybe being out to sea to feed.

The trail led along the cliff top skirting cleared paddocks. There is a signboard describing the revegetation of the trail and reclaimed farm paddocks with native vegetation, especially the NZ flax.

The headland of Cape Foulwind has been extensively modified by Europeans. The flat portion at the point was actually excavated starting in 1886. For 20 years more than a million tons of granite was removed by blasting then loading the rock onto railway wagons and hauling it to Westport for building a breakwater, roads and reclamation projects.

We reached the automated lighthouse and managed to find a tiny trail up to the base through all the replanted native vegetation!

We returned to the carpark via the same trail, encountering some locals.

More Weka, in this case a larger bird chasing 2 small birds around!

Around the curve of the small bay is the seal colony site.

This time, with binoculars, we were able to spot quite a few NZ fur seals, especially pups, that were playing in this little inlet.

The little inlet pond looked like it was a play-pen for the pups, which won’t be on their own until next spring when their mothers give birth again. The NZ fur seal looks a lot more like a sea lion, but apparently there is a difference according to the link above! We made it back to the car and returned to the Airbnb and enjoyed a great dinner.

The view of the deck and out to sea through the freshly cleaned leaded glass window!