NZ's South West Coast

The rugged west coast

The west coast of New Zealand's South Island is wild and remote but quite accessible today on the country's great road network.

First stop was Pancake Rocks, a bizarre amalgam of limestone and mudstone eroded by the furious Tasman Sea. They are fascinating to behold and still not fully explained by geologists.

The Southern Alps contain hundreds of glaciers and two of them, Franz Joseph and Fox, descend into the temperate rainforest and are quite accessible by helicopter or on foot. They attract a lot of tourism but like glaciers all over the world they are rapidly receding now.

The little town of Hokitika, established during the 19th century gold mining boom, is the setting of the excellent book I'm currently reading: Eleanor Canton's The Luminaries, winner of the 2013 Man Booker prize.

Today Hokitika is the centre for New Zealand Pounamu (greenstone) and is also a very wet place: almost 3 meters of rain annually!


I spent a little time walking the beach looking for the famed greenstone: though not gem quality, I did find some.

Our final stop on the west coast was Ship Creek where a boardwalk takes you through one of the last stands of Kahikatea trees, NZ's tallest. Once abundant and valued by Maori for their fruit, they were felled to make butter boxes for NZ's dairy export industry until they had virtually disappeared from the landscape.

The west coast is also famous for their stunning sunsets!