Monday 2nd February 2009

Arrived at Arthurs Pass village this afternoon after a eclectic visit to 'the end of the road in NZ'. And Karamea certainly is that! The main street has more cows grazing along side it than houses and people and if you see a car an hour that's busy! We had a very scenic journey there, from a drive through the Buller Gorge, where we stopped and paid our NZ$5 to cross the longest swing-bridge (at 110m) in NZ over the Buller river with sight of the fault line from an earthquake that virtually wiped out some of the villages in the area in 1929, then via Westport up the dramatic West coast, with waves from the Tasman Sea pounding the shore and mist hugging the cliff tops (we waved to Doug & Meg in Australia!). On arrival in Karamea we checked into our accommodation; the hippy backpacker lodge, Rongo (means peace man..). Fab room, solar hot water, organic veg garden and no staff, just volunteers who seemed to spend most of their time concocting lentil and brown rice dinners. However, the ambiance of the town and area draws you in very quickly; it's the closest we've come yet to tearing up our schedule and the return air ticket!! The lodge also houses the local community radio and Paul had a happy half hour looking through their music library (they also played very good music and aired a really funny comedy show on the Sunday). Tearing ourselves away, we drove to the start (or end!) of the Heaphy Track , a NZ Great Walk, in the afternoon and spent a few hours walking part of it, to Scotts Beach (which was featured in the film 'The Piano') and sat enjoying the views, until the Sandflies drove us back to the car. The local bars each had a live band playing on the Saturday; we opted for the blues band and had a fab evening drinking beer - we even bought a CD to play in the car! Yesterday, we woke to drizzle and low cloud but, undeterred, we bumped and bounced the car up the 15km unmade road leading to the Oparara Basin, home to weird and wonderful limestone formations and caves with ancient spiders (the lineage not their actual age). The Oparara arch is a huge natural limestone arch, which is the main feature but we liked the Moria Arch, smaller but you could wriggle through a cave entrance to get underneath it. Another live band was on at the bar in the evening - this time a South African/German Acoustic combo - they certainly get some unlikely visitors to this town!! Today, we headed back south, with a stop at Greymouth to visit the Monteith Brewery, Kate drew the short straw and drove but Paul made sure he carried out an extensive sampling of their wares!