Hokitika Gorge and Lake Kaniere

It was going to be another very hot day here in Hokitika, we could tell even before we set off for another day of exploring.  But first we needed to pack a picnic lunch to take, bacon and egg croisaants, a couple  of Christmas mince pies, a juicy peach each and a thermos of hot coffee.  The sun-screen and insect repellant came along too.  Now we were ready and drove 30km to Hokitika Gorge - never been there before.  The car park was very full, and we grabbed our stick each and headed along the path.  Most of the West Coast was  covered by vast moving glaciers 500,000 years ago, we read on the interpretation boards, and these shaped the landscape as they moved slowly along. 

At the start of the track

A short 10 minute walk though the bush led us to the Hokitika Swing Bridge.  It may have been short for most people, but took us a lot longer than the 10 mins stated, quite hard going for Robin and his knee problems.   The beautiful turquoise blue water caused when rocks are ground into a fine powder by the movement of glaciers.   We arrived at the look out point for our first glimpse of the very blue river and saw the swing bridge below us. 

Our first glimpse of the river and the bridge

Several more twists and turns on the track and we finally arrived at the bridge.  This had a limit of 6 people at a time so we had to wait our turn.  Here comes Robin over the bridge, and taking a photo from the middle of the slightly bouncing bridge was necessary, but a little unnerving.  And where would we be without friendly fellow sightseers  happy to take a photo for us?

 

Hokitika Gorge Swing Bridge

Robin really struggled with walking back up the track and in the end he did much better using my stick as well, he really needed two sticks for extra balance and a feeling of security, I think.  Resting in the car, and having a nice cold drink of water revived us both, and we went on our way again, this time to Lake Kaniere.  We came across the parking area for Dorothy Falls just before reaching the lake.  Luckily for us, the falls were just across the road, no trouble at all to reach them, and as a bonus, a nice wooden seat was provided. Dorothy Falls are not at all big, just a trickle really, but still nice to see and say that we had been there.

Dorothy Falls

Lake Kaniere was not too far away, another first for us, so off we went.  When we eventually arrived, after driving along a stretch of unsealed road, we found an attractive lake with a DOC Camp close by.  We sat in the car by the  lake side,  ate our picnic lunch, and watched as the day trippers were jumping off the jetty, paddling in the lake, and sunbathing on the grass.  The depression that formed the lake was carved out by a glacier during the ice age, the rock wall created at the end of the glacier forming a natural dam through which the Kaniere River flows.

Lake Kaniere

We passed by a large rock memorial on the side of the road, not a war memorial to fallen local soldiers as we presumed, but something quite different, and known as the Koiterangi Incident.  The Memorial, created using a boulder from Diedrichs Creek nearby and designed by Barry Thomson of Glenavy, was unveiled in 2004, to honour the memory of the seven victims, including four policemen shot by dairy farmer Eric Stanley George Graham. The murders took place in what is now commonly known as Kowhitirangi on the West Coast in New Zealand in October 1941.  One of New Zealand’s largest manhunts ended when Graham was shot on the evening of 20 October. He died of his wounds the following day.

The Koiterangi Incident

It  was quite sobering to read about this happening in such a quiet farming community and was not something I knew about.  It is always quite interesting what you discover on the side of the road as you travel along.