More Wednesday wanderings...

Today we left Christchurch behind and travelled to Hokitika on the west coast. In my previous post I showed the first part of our drive but connectivity problems were just too overwhelming.

At lunch time we stopped at Arthur’s Pass which took us high up into the Alps. My BIL is not bothered by driving on these winding, high up roads, so he did the majority of driving through the mountains.

At Arthur’s Pass we met a very friendly Kea, a native New Zealand bird. Signs forbade patrons from feeding the keas but this fellow didn’t know that! Lol

Then as we travelled further on after lunch we stopped at another lookout not far from Arthur’s Pass and what should we find there? Yes some more friendly keas!  The birds seemed to be fascinated by this lady’s gold ring! They were real characters J

But also at this lookout, we had a marvellous view of a large bridge...that poor truck on the bridge was just crawling along as the gradient was quite steep.

And just down from the view in the previous photo was this ingenious way of diverting water that comes down the mountain side and keep it from flowing on the road. My SIL says this technique is used a lot on Italian mountain roads. The covered road structure with the columns was signposted as a half bridge.

Then just before we reached Hokitika we saw another bridge...well part of an old bridge actually...

One span of this old rail and road bridge was saved and set up in this small reserve, thus preserving some of the district’s history.

Now just a few photos of Hokitika which is a smallish town on the west coast,

We had so many recommendations for this as a place to eat...so we went there for dinner and the meal was scrumptious!

 There is a beautiful coastline here...

Before dinner we went for a walk through an historical tunnel and then through some of the bush which was very similar to the rainforests back home.

More NZ birds!

We stumbled across a patchwork shop and my SIL and I had a wonderful time there, but I will tell you all about it next time and that will be when we are in Wanaka. See you then! :-)