24th November 2009
Our first night wasn’t a roaring success. We had parked the van on a slight incline without realising and spent most of the night with our feet slightly elevated making it a little uncomfortable. Also because we were undercover, we were much more sheltered than we would normally be, so found that we were quite warm in the night.
However, at least today was sunny and we were planning to head south down the west coast and find somewhere a little more remote to stay the night. There are several Department of Conservation campsites which have toilet facilities but little else and are set in some wonderful locations.
We called into the information place in Hokitika to pick up a list of DOC campsites. This is a strange little town with wide streets, but very quiet, almost like a ghost town. Apparently it only really gets busy in peak season and it’s still a little early for that.
After getting the list of sites we continued south down the highway where we arrived at the nearest campsite to the town, which also happened to be a picnic area. A beautiful lake, surrounded by woodlands with the snow-capped southern alps in the background. We pulled up and made our lunch and sat outside in the sun by the campervan to enjoy it. This was more what we had imagined things to be like and if it had been later in the day we would gladly have stayed here for the night, but since it was only 1pm we decided to press on.
We tried another DOC campsite, again by the side of a lake, but this one was more like a car-park and only had a ’long-drop’ chemical toilet. I’m not a fan of these at all! So we decided to move on to a small campsite we had read about in the Lonely Planet at Okarito, a secluded beach about 20kms from the highway.
What a spot! Although breezy we found a sheltered area which enabled us to enjoy the sunshine. We took a walk along the windswept and wild beach, littered with driftwood which we collected to make a fire. Back at the van, it quickly transpired that the wind was much more contrary than we originally thought when we tried to light a fire and the smoke seemed to blow everywhere. Consequently, we now have a small amount of washing to do and there is a definate lingering smell of bonfire everywhere. Note to self - fires are not a good idea!
