Murchison to Pancake Rocks by Miriam

Miriam again. We woke up to a beautiful day and joined Shirley, Merve and Glenn for breakfast. Merve made a delicious juice – mixture of kiwi, pear and some other fruit I can’t remember. We also had bacon and pancakes available if we wanted. I chose bacon. Apparently the pancakes were a special treat because this was Glenn’s second day. I don’t know about the bacon. Delicious, fresh, home-made bread was also available.

Then we left for our rafting trip. Before going out, the rafting guides clothed us - heavy duty wetsuit, separate polartec and fleece uppers, both so worn and torn I wasn’t sure they would do the job so I left on my dry top as well. The wet suit was a little big and I needed Harvey’s help to pull it up so the crotch stayed above my knees. Over all this we wore a spray shirt to keep us dry. The piece de resistance was the life jacket - they either had small or large - small was too small and large was too large – so large it was. It was very stiff and hung down to my hips and crawled up my neck. I could not bend in it and felt like that little kid in The Christmas Story all bundled up to go out to play but not able to move.
Joining Harvey, Glen and me were the guide’s father and a young man from England. We headed out to the raft on the Buller River in the Buller Gorge. Harvey and Glenn volunteered to be in front. I had a hard time getting into the raft because I couldn’t bend or lift my legs. We received paddling instructions, what to do if we tipped, practiced a bit and were on our way. I was way too warm until we hit the first rapid. Each rapid was fun but short. Most were done quickly. At one point Harvey and Glen got out of the boat to float with feet first through a small rapid. No one else wanted to brave the cold water. I might have tried, I like to think, but I wasn’t sure I could move my arms and legs once I hit the water and I wasn’t sure I could bend the life jacket to bring my legs up. We went over a waterfall and the guide slightly lost control of the boat as we ricocheted between the rocks on either side of the river. That was fun really. The guide blamed this oopsy on the fact that the three men on one side paddled harder than me and Harvey, the only two on the other side. We had to feel proud that he wasn’t expecting this since we were halfway down the river. ☺
We reached some rocks and we were free to jump in the river from the rocks. There was small, medium and large. Once in the river you needed to swim towards shore where the guide would catch you. The middle rock was about eight meters and the tall one about ten. Everyone jumped but me. Harvey jumped the middle rock. Again, I like to think I would have jumped if I had confidence that once in the river I could move.

All in all the raft trip was a lot of fun but I think I’ll stick to water sports where I can wear a little less - and I may check out the life jackets first. The pull out was a very steep bank and the menfolk had to shove the raft up in stages while I walked along behind. But before I did that I unzipped her my jacket. AHHHHH!!!!!

We have done rafting in the U.S. on several different rivers, and our younger son worked as a river rafting guide in Oregon. We noticed several things about this trip that were different than our previous trips: the cold weather gear that inhibited a lot of movement, the fact that the raft was monitored from the shore by two people from the rafting company, one of whom took photos along the way, and the fact that the raft was put into the river by hand, lowering it down, or carrying it up, very steep, cliff-like river banks.

After the trip we were offered tea or coffee and some biscuits plus we were asked to watch a CD of the pictures they took - which of course was available for purchase. The pictures were good if a little amateurish. At one point we heard the photographer lament an overexposed shot. Harvey and I noticed that since we have been struggling with overexposure ourselves. Naturally everyone bought the CD.

We said our goodbyes and went on our way through a stretch of highway described as paralleling the “tortuous Buller Gorge”. Whoever wrote this section in the Lonely Planet had not traveled from Upper Hutt into Wellington. Harvey breezed through this section and I even felt I could enjoy the scenery and didn’t need to use my willpower to help Harvey drive, so my eyes did not need to be glued to the road. We stopped at a little café on the way for lunch - I had a toasted ham and cheese and Harvey a pannini with weird stuff in it like meat and pineapple.

We passed through the gorge and hit the west coast. More than one person has told us that the stretch of beach between Westport and Franz Joseph glacier is the most scenic in all of New Zealand. We were waiting for our jaws to drop, but they didn’t. We stopped just south of Westport and walked to a lighthouse at the tip of Cape Foulwind. It was beautiful but not that different from home.

We stopped for the night at Punakaiki, where the pancake rocks are, and took the first motel we stopped at. All units have ocean views, some are closer to the beach, and some are accessed via a tunnel and are on the opposite side of the highway. We opted for the cheaper room which was on the opposite side of the highway. For future reference - rooms that front a highway suffer from a lot of road noise. But we did have a beautiful view. We had dinner in the motel’s dining room - it too had a beautiful ocean view. We watched the sun set as we dined on delicious lamb shanks.

We decided to go to the main attraction – pancake rocks - that night to see if it was worth returning to in the morning. This is a park where the limestone is in horizontal layers that vaguely resemble stacked pancakes; those layers have been carved by the sea into tunnels and deep holes with water gushing in. Apparently, if the tide is right, the waves surge into blowholes and spout into the air like geysers. The tide, of course, was not right.

But it was beautiful at night and we decided to return the next morning As we walked back to our car the sun had set and it was quite dark. We couldn’t find the sign we saw on the way in - I do not do well at night and was a little apprehensive until we reached the highway. The path in and out passes through stands of flax that are head height so it is difficult to see ahead especially at night. But with Harvey’s expert path tracking skills we made it ☺ although I had to listen as Harvey make spooky sounds to spoof my apprehension.

We returned to the motel with the road noise. We parked the car on the edge of the parking lot and the headlights picked up a chicken-sized bird with big feet and a long bill pecking for food. We were sure we had spotted the elusive kiwi. We watched it for awhile until it disappeared into the bushes. We went to bed feeling very, very lucky!!!