19th September 2004
Reluctantly leaving Kaikoura, we made the journey from the east coast over to the west via Arthur's Pass.
The road passes through some spectacular scenery and was a little hairy at times - sheer cliff drops and hairpin bends. They don't seem to know about crash barriers over in NZ!
Along Arthur's Pass, we stopped for a quick rest and met the infamous Kea bird. It's basically a parrot that lives in the alpine regions of NZ but tends to hang around where the tourists are, hoping to munch on anything they are fed.
They're a feisty thing and have acquired a taste for rubber - windscreen wipers and tyres mainly!
We left rapidly as they were eyeing up the seal around the roof of our camper and would've ate the lot!!
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After negotiating the winding roads over Arthur's Pass, we finally made it to Hokitika.
Once a gold town, where if the rivers flooded they'd find nuggets in the streets, Hokitika is now just a sleepy town and it's where we'd stay the night.
Joo's birthday was the following day, so we treated ourselves to a lovely log cabin and found a fantastic little Indian place and had a curry washed down with plenty of wine.
Next to our cabin was pretty much a menagerie of animals including a couple of emu's!
