It may sounds like a good idea to crisscross the country as many times as possible. And we thought the same and decided to do the Arthur’s Pass
to prove that there are still sandflies on West Coast..
The day was really windy and Newt was almost unable to go against the wind – we went really slowly and saw just whirl in petrol tank. Steep ascent to the first pass didn’t help at all, but we finally made it and had coffee to relax a bit. Just short drive away were Castle Hill, nice rock formation especially popular for bouldering. It looks maybe a bit like Devil’s Marbles in Australia, but much bigger.
Just around bend is Cave Stream, another free cave on our trip. This one was formed by stream (surprise, surprise) and it is still running through it, so it isn’t advise to go there during or after heavy rain. We went just before (at least it looked like some rain comming) and it was really good. It started with pool deep just to your waist and during the trip we had to „climb“ (they were quite small) several waterfalls. Color of the walls is just awesome and they are really nice curved, would spend there several hours taking some nice pictures. And it even look like it would be possible to go in kayak (at least most of the time), just didn’t have time to try it. It took just about an hour to get through and was really nice experience, completly different to Clifden Caves. And we were probably most shocked that it wasn’t slippery at all.
Courtesy by Tomas
Second day was rainy – a lot. We went through the rest of Arthur’s Pass almost directly to Hokitika, where we had our favorite fish&chips, did another walk around shops looking for some nice jade charm and thought about some surfing on the beach. However, the waves were really strong and falling down pretty quickly, so it wouldn’t be much fun. Went to camp instead, downloaded video from cameras to be able to cut another movie and waited for Zdenka and Marketa to arrive for our perfect potato pancakes. Even some Asian people, who were there, liked the pancakes (or were polite enough).