West Coast

Pancake Rocks
see all photos »

Once you reach the western side the vegetation changes completely, arid rolling landscape gives way to lush dense forest. The mountains act as a barrier for the clouds and so all the rain falls on the western side, hence a temperate rainforest. I have never made it to southern Chile but I am quite sure it vaguely resembles this. As far as mountain passes goes it was very gentle and not too hard to drive, although I am saying this from a passenger point of view. Very few people about and even less traffic. I am glad we came at this time of the year before the tourist season really gets underway. A few scattered houses and farms and nothing else in between. This area was at the heart of the gold mining rush, and the few towns that you see are linked even to this day with the mining industry.

NZ's longest swing bridge over the Buller River.
see all photos »

Eventually you reach the sea at Greymouth. Not a very interesting place at all, but from here northwards we continued our journey towards Punakaiki along a beautiful wild piece of ocean towards “Pancake Rocks”, (Punakaiki sounds so much better!). The roads hugs the mountains and the hills are covered with beautiful tree ferns and thick forest. From a distance it looks almost like moss. This place was lovely, and it is amazing to hear the waves crushing against the rocks in the caves beneath the footpaths.

Lake Rotoiti by St. Arnaud
see all photos »

From here we followed the Buller River eastwards, past Murchison towards St Arnaud, a town in the shores of Lake Rotoiti where we went for a gorgeous walk along a conservation area. Here they have formed a kind of island sanctuary for native species offering native species of birds, etc, a safe heaven by eliminating predators which were introduced in the last hundred years or so by immigrants, such as stoats, weasels, wild cats, pigs, wasps, etc. The most striking thing about this walk was listening to the amount of different bird songs along the way. We did freeze our bottoms off, as the wind that came off the lake was piercing, but it was lovely.

Walking around Nelson Lakes NP.
see all photos »

The next bit of our travels we might put down as a bit of a detour, although in fact we got totally lost along a huge stretch of road that crossed some ugly pine plantations, but we did eventually and after some swearing by the driver make it to our destination.