And then, it happened. We were driving along, on the wrong side of the road, enjoying the bright sunny day, when they came out of nowhere, engulfing the car in a sea of wool and baa'd jokes:
After recovering from our fleecing, we continued on to the quaint little town of Murchison. Not much to do in Murchison, 'cept to go to the Buller Gorge Swingbridge (TM)!
We stopped at Buller Gorge (and paid an entrance fee of $5 each) to see New Zealand's longest swingbridge, which was harrowing because of the open metal grate bottom and rocks far below.
Denise paid $12.50 to try panning for gold, which was a disappointingly short activity because the sandflies along the riverbanks were eating Denise and Corey alive!
New Zealand is famous for its one-lane bridges. Apparently, putting up some signs is a lot cheaper than laying down another lane of asphalt (which Kiwis call 'seal'. A different 'seal' from the ones we saw yesterday, and different still from the one that's married to Heidi Klum. Denise said I had to spice up the postings a bit). But here, in the middle of the only State Highway that connects the east and west sides of the South Island together for a hundred kilometers in any direction, we have its cousin: the one-laned-hairpin-turn-on-the-side-of-a-sheer-cliff-that-did-we-mention-you-can't-see-the-other-side-of-and-have-to-go-the-rediculous-speed-of-nine-miles-per-hour-around? At least this one had a small guardrail and a traffic light (not all of them do).
As a reward, some random guy in a Jetboat decided to wave to us as I was taking pictures. Nice folk in New Zealand.
We made it to Westport just in time before the i-site closed and booked our lodging for the night in Hokitika, south of Greymouth, the largest "city" on the West Coast of the South Island. Between Westport and Greymouth is the town of Punakaiki best known for its Pancake Rocks. Denise was particularly excited to see the Pancake Rocks because they were featured in her island-a-day calendar last year. We arrive in Punakaiki just before sunset - Corey's favorite time of the day - known as the "Golden Hour" which resulted in some FANTASTIC shots of the Pancake Rocks. Somehow these amazingly unique rocks contain layers of "hard" rock interlaced with layers of "soft" rock and then the waves and surf carve them into towers. They were wonderful.
We only stopped in Greymouth for gas because we knew we would be stopping there again on our last day full day in New Zealand after taking the TranzAlpine train ride from Christchurch. Now on the coast, we finally spend some time on the ocean, or, in this case the Tasman Sea. Interesting fact: Abel Tasman, whom everything's named after here, never actually set foot on New Zealand soil. Go figure. Anyways, we pulled over for a few sunset shots, and enjoyed the smell of the fresh ocean air and cow patties.
We arrive in Hokitika late in the evening, picked up fish and chips for takeaway and ate them at Birdsong backpackers. The ensuite double was already booked, so we had the "Oystercatcher" room with a shared bathroom - all of the rooms were named after native New Zealand birds, and we had a big painting of an Oystercatcher in our room, painted by the owner of the backpackers hostel. It was a very comfortable backpackers, with a "homey" feel. We drove just down the road (actually the state highway) to the nearby glow worm dell, and walked 50 meters to see the glowworms. It was so neat that they were so accessible and that there were so many of them in the dell.
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