March 4 A Day Off (Day 159)

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 species found throughout New Zealand, particularly along stream banks and in regenerating bush…All parts of all Coriaria species are poisonous except the 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!

March 3 Rain then Sun (Day 158)

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!

March 2 Rainy Day (Day 157)

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.

March 1 Cape Foulwind (Day 156)

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!

February 29 Westport Shopping (Day 155)

Shopping Day! We need fresh fruit & veggies so we headed to the closest store which is in Westport, about 26 miles north. We’re also looking for new shoes, 6 months of hiking all around NZ has worn our walking shoes out! Luckily for us the one shoe store in town has Keens & Merrells (my favorite walking shoes) which were on sale! In fact, everything was on sale because this store, and several more stores we noticed, is going out of business. Westport started in 1861 to supply goldminers that flocked to the area in the west coast gold rush. Eventually it transitioned to coal mining and dairy farming when the easy gold pickings played out. The coal mining is mechanizing and downsizing so the town is transitioning once again, to tourism, with mountain biking and tramping as well as surfing being highlighted. Westport is the northern most town for supplies on the west coast. Another 69 miles north is the end of the road, and the beginning (or end) of the Heaphy  Track, one of the 10 Great Walks of NZ.

New shoes in hand (we both found a pair!) we headed to a pub for lunch.

Huge chicken/bacon burgers and a beer!

We then headed for a pint at the local brewery, the small revitalized Shortjaw Brewery, housed in the old Miner’s Brewery that operated from the 1950’s, supplying the coal miners with a cold pint after a long shift in the mine.

They had a tasty Hazy on tap!

We finally got to the grocery store for our victuals!

Amongst the variety of ‘crisps’ as they call potato chips here, we found the 2 middle flavors; pizza and cheese bread, we didn’t find the spaghetti bolognese or the mac n’cheese flavors that Bill & Perla asked us about! We opted for the Garden Medley of vegetable crisps!