Hokitika

Lovely two days of riding - lots of climbing yesterday, but long sweet downhills after lunch, through an enchanted forest of huge green trees, and giant ferns.  Last night we were in Reefton, what a quiet peaceful town.  Yesterday, I was thinking about all you people who told us New Zealand was just like Canada, but compact, it is true!  In fact, someone on our tour talked to a Kiwi who's said "yeah, I've been to Canada, it's just like New Zealand, only bigger!"

Way back in Paihaia, we went to a kind of Friday night Food Festival and one of the things I sampled was whitebait, which was mixed with a little bit of beaten egg and cooked on a grill, then served on a slice of white bread - delicious, and Hokitika is where whitebait comes from!  We arrived here at our "interesting" hotel accommodations, (owner was being carted off in an ambulance as we arrived) and went for a walk on the beach because the truck had not arrived with our bags.  There were a lot of driftwood sculptures on the beach, remnants of the Sand and Driftwood Festival back in January.  I contributed a very nice flat beach stone inukshuk to the local beach art.

Tomorrow we are riding to Franz Josef, where there's a big glacier (pronounced glassy - R,  as in, "the morning after the party, his eyes were glassier than hers"), and in the bar here at our hotel, there's a big panorama photo of the mountains above us. - I sure hope we get to see them tomorrow!