Going South to Hokitika

2nd April
We drove south from Karamea back to Westport and then finding that everything was closed because it was Good Friday we drove on south to Cape Foulwind; named by Captain Cook due to the gales he had to withstand here for 2 weeks but now also a bit stinky because of the sea lion colony. All the signs say that they are seals but what we saw were definately sea lions with the turned out feet that they walk on; seals just flobble around like a large maggot when they are on land! We stood and watched the young sea lions playing in the surf around the nursery rocks, many very young ones were just sitting alone on the rocks and one was nursing. As the wind blew in off the sea you got a whiff of their stinkiness!
On south again to Punakaiki where there are some amazing 'pancake rocks', they are very thinly layered sedimentary rocks which scientists can't explain; there are just too many layers to be formed in the normal way. There is also a blow hole amongst the rocks but the sea wasn't rough enough to make it blow!
Then on south again to Greymouth, the largest town on the west coast of the South Island, but still tiny!

3rd April
We had a fantastic two hour quad bike adventure through bush and water and dirt. Tris had a smaller bike which got caught a couple of times and the wheels span and the mud flew. We have photos on a CD which were taken by our guide as we went round but I will have to load them later as I don't have a CD reader on this little laptop. The whole trip just made me smile as I bumped up and down and skidded round corners. Tris ended up with mud absolutely everywhere!
We also went to try to buy our wheel rim (again) but noone stocks the right size so we have organised for one to be sent from Christchurch to Queenstown by Wednesday. Everything is going to be closed Sunday and Monday for Easter, just like everything was closed on Good Friday; so we spent the rest of the afternoon making sure we got everything organised - shopping, mending the tyre that keeps going flat (it turned out to be the valve) and getting further south to Hokitika.