As they advert: “The Tasman sea pounds this region’s 600 km stretch of coastline and the great ocean road from Westport to Greymouth affords spectacular views.” Yes, as long as it’s not raining… The West Coast offers a big variety of weather conditions. In the West Coast there is more protected land that in any part of New Zealand. There are rainforests, clean rivers and lakes and unique glaciers. Besides there are small (almost dead) towns from the Gold Rush days.

On our way from Nelson to the West Coast, we drove along the Buller River. It’s the Coast’s largest river and there are scenic gorges on the way. It was a warm day, and the river was so lovely!

We stopped to overnight in Westport into a motel. We really liked to stay over in the motels, you get the car next to your room (easy to move the things), you can cook your own food and get a bit feeling of home. Besides, those are always easy to find. The price level is also around the same as staying in a hostel in a private room.

After the morning routine of adding sun screen all over, we started to drive south from Westport. In the heaviest rain… The most spectacular sights on our way were the Pancake Rocks and the mighty blowholes at Punakaiki (http://www.punakaiki.co.nz/). Those coastal rocks really look like enormous stacks of pancakes! Again, something we have never seen before!

We got there just before the tourist busses (be early!) and in between rain shower, luckily. It’s said to be one of the most popular sights in NZ and the walk is really easy, so be prepared to share the way with plenty of other people.

We visited also few other spots in this Paparoa national park. The Punakaiki Cavern is hidden away on the eastern side of the main road, just 5 min north from the Pancake Rocks. It’s a very short walk, that leads to the stairs up to the cavern entrance. We should have had a torch with us, the cavern seemed to go really deep. It was a bit scary place for us, there was nobody else, and there were stalactites dropping from the ceiling, and there could have been some scary spiders or bats…

Just few kilometers south, there is a starting point for Inland Pack Track. It starts from Waikori Road. To access there, you must open a gate to a farm and it looks like it’s private property, but no worries, just drive there and watch for horses using the same road. We walked only shortly, over the hanging bridge and bit of the rain forest. And there was a break in the rain, we had the lunch too!

Part of the West Coast region is also a village of Reefton. We past that on our way back to north. It’s an old gold mining town, and its visitor center is worth to stop by, they have a nice exhibition of mining! Otherwise the town was a little bit like a ghost town, but pretty anyway and surroundings are great as it’s at the heart of the Victoria forest park.

Brunner mine site is 11 km east of Greymouth, and it’s easily accessed from road no 7. There is a nice exhibition and remaining of a mine.

On our way back up north we stayed one night in Greymouth, which was booming on 1860’s during the cold rush. That’s the town known to be the end stop of the TranzAlpine train, which goes between Christchurch and Greymouth, over the mountain range. For us, in this place wasn’t really anything to see. We visited Monteith’s Brewing Co. to celebrate Jukka’s birthday. The brewery is open for public tours and it has won many prizes, but to be honest, we think the beer wasn’t anything too spectacular there. And if you order a tasting plate of 7 different beers, you don’t expect there to be one glass of cider? After that we stopped for a beer in an empty Union Hotel. It was a ghost town, mainly anyway because of the Christmas season, we suppose (or hope).

As mentioned, the weather at the region is often rainy. The average rainfall is 2575 mm, and it’s usually is high-density downpours. But without, there wouldn’t be the beautiful unspoiled rainforest and magnificent glaciers of the region!

This is us in Hokitika, and in a spot called “Sunset Point”.

Tip! The roads are flooding easily (where are the ditches??), be careful and believe the orange warning signs while driving!

Down the west coast road our next stop was the village of Franz Josef Glacier. The village is 5 km from the glacier, and there are lot of backpacker’s hostels. As the Christmas was coming, Marja tried to decorate the gingerbread (found Swedish versions from a shop!) in the hostel.

It was cold and rainy, but the next day we were lucky to avoid the biggest storms while checking out two glaciers. Franz Josef and Fox glaciers reach the lower rainforests. It’s a rare opportunity to experience a dynamic glacial environment in a temperate climate. The ice cut through the valleys and flow through the rainforest to just 270 m above sea level! To actually reach the ice, they offer helicopter tours, but we were satisfied with the tramping from the car parks as close as possible.

Franz Josef walk was really nice, easy, and it took about 45 min to reach the look-out.

Fox glacier walk was shorter, but ends up closer to the ice.

From glaciers, we continued our journey south along the west coast. It was rainy and windy, it’s always hard to stop the car and go out. But the breaks are indeed needed! Here are some photos from the beach of Bruce Bay.

Another little stop was at Ship Creek Walk and Monro Beach.

From the village of Haast we turned towards inland. And just like that, the sun started to shine again!

Haast highway has numerous lookouts, walks and waterfalls. We were checking these from WikiCamps app, and there were just too many to even stop by. We chose to make a longer walk in the Blue Pools, just north of Makarora. Blue Pools have glacier-fed water and it’s so clear you can see the bottom. We saw few people jumping off a bridge, that was crazy!