Fox Glacier to Hokitika

Tuesday we drove 6 km west of Fox Glacier to do the "must do" 1.5 hour walk along the boardwalk and through the native bush around picturesque Lake Matheson. It can have wonderful reflections of Mount Cook and Mt Tasman in its waters and you often see photos of it on calendars. When we were there a lot of early morning cloud was still about so they weren't mirrored as well as we had seen previously.

Mounts Tasman & Cook behind the cloud!

Tarzan of Matheson!

Okarito, a little further north is quite a special place - it was originally inhabited by Maori who gathered the vast amount of seafood there but this changed once gold was discovered on the beaches and a population boom occurred. Now it is a tiny village on a small sandspit which divides NZ's largest wetland and the Tasman Sea. The lagoon would be great to kayak around and there are commercial tours to see where the white herons are nesting.
We were going to have a walk down to the beach but there was a very large loose German Shepherd watching us from the back of the ute parked next to us and his owner was nowhere to be seen so we opted not to get out of the bus! Better safe than sorry!

We stopped at the Whataroa Golf Club after the nice drive, having passed Lake Mapourika on the way, and played 18 holes on the fairly uninspiring 9 hole flat course with it's crackly brittle brown grass with the odd tapestry of green from some watering.
A couple of the more interesting holes had deep dry waterways just before the greens.

Leaving Whataroa @ 08.00!

There was no-one else on the course and by the time we finished playing just before 7.00pm we decided it was time for dinner and a little bit far to drive to an allowable camp spot so there being no-one to ask if we could stay we rather guiltily decided to just do it. We felt very obvious as the carpark was right by the main road but we were able to sleep without anyone disturbing us.

We were on the road early this morning, driving through little Hari Hari which has the widest main street in the South Island and past Lake Ianthe before stopping in Ross to do the hour Goldfields walk which takes you past mine entrances and mining relics following the water races used for the gold sluicing.

Beautiful & serene!

Lake Mahinapua, just 10 km south of Hokitika is a beautiful, peaceful spot with a DOC camp on its edge and bush surrounding it, and we had a little walk there before continuing on to Hokitika which just happened to have a golf course on the main road before we arrived there so of course we just had to play another round!
The course stretches a long way along the strip between the road and the beach and being quite narrow seems to have quite a lot of overlapping fairways and tees going across them as well. I wouldn't like to play on it if it was busy! As it happens it was Mens Day but we were following the field of only about 20 so it was no problem. Len thought we might be able to join them for a beer afterwards so was disappointed to find that they had all gone straight home after their games -most unusual we thought!
We are now parked at an NZMCA site ($2 each a night) on the edge of Hokitika with about 12 other vans so it seems quite busy.