|
We woke up at 6 a.m. and ate a quick breakfast of banana chocolate chip muffins and orange juice in the van. We left Old MacDonald's, and on our way out we caught a spectacular sunrise over the beach. We headed out via the Motueka Valley Highway south to Rt. 6. The "highway" was a very scenic road, and there were lots of areas where the road was cut away from rock overhangs. Virtually every bridge was a one-lane bridge, with a sign indicating which direction has the right of way. We continued south and stopped at the Hope Saddle Observation area to check out some great vistas.
We continued south, stopping for gas and a newspaper. At around 12:30 we arrived at Cape Foulwind. We tramped on the Cape Foulwind walkway (the cape is so named because Captain Cook thought that the wind was unfavorable there and that he would not be able to exit once he entered) up to the lookout point for the seal colony. It is seal pup season, and we saw a bunch of NZ fur seals and their pups basking on rocks. Adults swam in the ocean while pups seemed to enjoy playing in little whirlpools created by the surf hitting their rock. Eventually we saw some of the pups enter the ocean as well. The tramp here was very pretty, and was surrounded by flax plants. There was one of those signposts with mileage to various cities in the world. New York was 12,749 km away, and Moscow was 14,223. The weather was gorgeous, sunny and warm. We tramped back to the van and then hit the road again. We stopped at a small gallery and admired the Maori necklaces made of carved bone and greenstone, as well as beautiful wooden bowls and chests of small drawers. We talked to the shopkeeper about the 1970's Elton John that she was playing, which was rather a nice respite from the 80's pop which seems so ubiquitous in New Zealand. We got back on the road and set off to find a place to eat lunch. At 1:30 we ran across a restaurant in Charleston. It was called the Cave Rock Cafe, and we realized that we had inadvertently stumbled upon a place we had seen on the internet which offers "blackwater" tubing through limestone caves. Reservations are needed about a day ahead for that trip, since they book the guides on an as-needed basis. We were told that we could come back tomorrow, or we could do the nighttime glowworm tour at 8 p.m. that same night. We opted for the glowworm tour of the Metro Cave. We were slightly disappointed that we wouldn’t be doing the tubing, but it just didn't really fit our schedule. We hoped that the walking cave tour and train ride through the rainforest wasn't really touristy and commercialized. We ate lunch at the Cave Rock Cafe. I had a Hawaiian burger (which contained no burger; it was a slice of ham, a slice of pineapple, a slice of cheese, and a slice of beet. I ate it, sans beet. Craig got a whitebait sammy (sandwich). Whitebait are little teeny fish all mashed together into a patty, and they were served on the NZ equivalent of Wonder bread. Not the best meal we'd ever had, but we had been hearing about whitebait and were very curious. It kind of just tasted like a generic fish sandwich on Wonder bread. Craig had a Miner's Dark beer and I had apple/orange juice. After lunch we drove 45 minutes to Punakaiki (the "Pancake Rocks") which are natural limestone structures at the shore that look like stacks of pancakes. We checked in the camper van at the Punakaiki Beach Camp and then headed off to Dolomite Point (the best viewing area). We walked the flax-perimetered path, admiring the striated limestone rocks and the various blowholes. We knew that the best times to view were at sunset (for the rocks) and high tide (for the blow holes). It turned out that both would occur simultaneously tonight around 6 p.m. We went into the Visitor's Centre and the shops. It immediately seemed too commercial to me. Bone carvings by the same artist we had seen in the gallery earlier today were easily twice the price. It just seemed like a rip-off in all ways, so we didn't buy anything. We did go into an internet cafe, though, where we inserted some coins and got a certain amount of online time. We checked our mail and sent out a little update to our folks. It was now just about time for sunset and high tide, so we crossed the street and wandered along the path at the rocks again. You could hear and feel the ocean thundering beneath you as you stood on the rock ledges and bridges. The blowholes were very active, but most of our attempts to catch them on film were unsuccessful. We had a great view of sunset, as well as the almost-full moon that was already up. As we walked back to the van it started to rain. We had no idea if our train ride/cave tour would operate in the rain, so we drove back to Charleston in the pouring rain with our fingers crossed. We entered the restaurant/bar and asked the bartender if the tour was going. He had no idea. We didn't see a group or a guide, and it was just before 8. We didn't really know what to do, so we each got a drink (Craig had a Miner's Gold and I had a Peach Archers). At exactly 8:00, a man approached us and introduced himself as Geoff, our guide. He said that we were the only ones on tonight's tour, and he was quite excited to be taking us out. He appeared to be one of the founders of the company. Craig and I finished our drinks (probably wouldn't have had them if we had realized that we did indeed have a hike ahead of us), and Geoff gave us our gear. He himself had a carbide headlamp. I had a normal flashlight on my headlamp, and Craig had a headlamp with an external 10-lb battery. We hopped into Geoff's van. We drove through a sheep pasture and to the start of the rainforest. We got out of the van and Geoff introduced us to Cecil, a small train with a petrol engine and two wee open-air passenger cars (each one might hold 6 people). It had a roof, so the waning rain didn't really get us. They had just constructed the narrow gauge railroad a few months ago. There was a little station house and everything. As we chugged through the rain forest with Geoff at the controls, we were only able to see glimpses of the lush vegetation as lit by the two lights on the front of the train and our own headlamps. We arrived at the terminal train station and hiked through the rain forest on a nice path which culminated in a set of stairs. After climbing the stairs, we reached the mouth of the cave. We saw a few cave wetas and a large spider as we entered the cave. We were delighted to find that the cave was not commercialized at all. The only light was from our own headlamps. There were no constructed walkways, merely pieces of string indicating the direction in which to walk. The cave was active, i.e. you could see many stalactites and stalagmites in progress, with luminescent water droplets on their tips. Older inactive formations had turned more crystalline and dry. There were some wet spots on the ground, and we needed to duck down in certain stretches where the ceiling was really low. Some of the stalactites that we saw were so thin and delicate that they looked like long thin icicles. It seemed a physical impossibility that they could remain hanging. Geoff was a great guide. He was very knowledgeable and enthusiastic. It seemed as if there was no way he'd rather spend his Friday night than guiding people through the cave that he knows so well. We climbed over a rock fall. We saw some incredible formations. At places the ceiling of the cave was black with white veins. We descended to the second level. (The cave rafting trip goes to the third level, where the blackwater tubing takes place). The cave floods about once every two weeks, and we came upon a small lake. There was a trout in the lake. Geoff had thought they had lost him in the last flood. It was creepy to think of it existing in total darkness. The limestone cave and the fish pond reminded us of Gollum's lair in Lord of the Rings. Craig's headlamp was so strong that it began burning his forehead. He only wore it when he needed head protection, as a blister was starting to form. Craig was thinking about Rick Wakeman's "Journey to the Centre of the Earth" album. It was like another world. Geoff took us to the section of the cave where the glowworms are easily visible. When we all turned out our lights and our eyes adjusted to the pitch blackness, it was amazing: small pinpricks of light began to appear on the cave ceiling over our heads. It looked like we were looking at the stars. There seemed to be an entire galaxy up there. Geoff explained that when insects are trapped in the caves, they get disoriented by the darkness. The glowworms' rear ends glow at will, and insects are attracted to the lights. The glowworms also produce web-like threads which hang from the ceiling of the caves. The insects get caught, and the glowworms eat them. Glowworms are also very territorial and cannibalistic if they get in one another's way. Geoff explained that the glowworms are nature's most efficient source of light: they are the only light source known to man which does not produce heat as a byproduct. We saw a large spider near the glowworms. Geoff said that the big spider in the movie "Arachnophobia" came from this very cave. On our way to the cave exit, Geoff showed us the cave's "diamonds". During several months of the year, due to the ideal humidity and temperature within the cave, water droplets on the cave ceiling perfectly refract light and shine like diamonds. We exited the cave and hiked back down to the train. Geoff drove the train back, and the track was a bit slippery in places from the rain. He put sand on the track to give the wheels some friction. We hopped into Geoff's van, and he returned us to the office at around 11:30 p.m. Wow, our tour had lasted longer than scheduled. Craig had actually predicted this, as it seemed that Geoff was really enjoying himself. We are very glad that we got him as a guide. It was a wonderful evening. We were amazed by the entire experience. We got back to the campground n Punakaiki at around 12:30 a.m., and we went straight to sleep. |
 Sunrise over Abel Tasman  Cape Foulwind  Cape Foulwind  Pancake Rocks, Punakaiki  Blow hole at high tide, Punakaiki  Sunset, Punakaiki  Train to the cave  Stalactites  Stalactites 
|
|
 |
|
 |
