On these trips, often we stop at points along the way and today is one of those days, our first stop is at Tauranga Bay, which has one of the entry points to Cape Foulwind walkway, this track passes a kekeno/seal colony and offers a view of the Cape Foulwind lighthouse. In the pics below I have attached panels that tell stories of the Māori history, sea voyages and early explorers in this region. Just as a point of note the Māori people arrived in NZ from the pacific Islands around 11-1200. There are 4 walks here, a short 15 min, 1 hr, 1 hr 15 mins and a 2 hr 30 min one 6.4km is the longest. In my experience, the times for these walks seem to be scaled on fairly unfit slow walkers.

Some of the views here remained me of the Mourne’s and Royal County Down Golf Course, you can let me know if you see the resemblance also.

Our next walk en route to Lake Brunner was to the Pancake Rocks where there is also a big surge pool. The rocks are broadly sculpted by the forces of nature over millions of years; wind, air and ocean waves chipped away at the softer layers of rock, creating the striking flat and stacked appearance.

Lake Brunner is on the west coast. Greymouth is the largest town in the South – according to James the people are different here “ manners and cleanliness optional” lol and then he retracted this statement very quickly, however, I have a feeling there is an edge of truth to most sayings! The huge Monteith Brewery is here. The Westland National Park has Kahikatia Trees, which are the tallest trees, this is a low energy forest. It is very dense and they have seen the biggest boom in birdlife here. So many of the native birds are flightless and often like the white heron nest on the ground and so they and their eggs/chicks are so vulnerable.

Onwards to Lake Brunner where we got to the pub on site, yay, whilst burgers and pizza’s are available so are some lovely salad options yay! This is a really nice place/area with a nice walk option along the lake.

Some more fun facts:

A batch is the NZ description of a holiday home, I am fairly confident that I have told you this already.

This is hops and apple country there are miles of Bine yes Bine not Vine – the difference being Bine is entwined to grow whereas Vine are natural climbing plants.

Kiwi fruit, New Zealanders will always give it it’s full name, eg James had a guy on one of his trips who asked him if he ate Kiwi, and in James’s head he thought “mate you are asking me if I eat endangered birds!”, well I found it amusing lol. It transpired of course he was talking about Kiwi fruit.

Kiwi Fruit was originally called Chinese Gooseberry , a school teacher from the North Island went to China in the early 1900’s and brought some seeds home and grew them, by 1959 the name was changed to Kiwi, by this time it had changed from the small cherry size to what we know and love today, the largest ones are the size of a Mango. The new sweeter Golden Kiwi is grown under the Zespberry licence as they have the patent for it, the key difference is that it is smooth on the outside and is a pale brown colour. It is a very vulnerable fruit particularly to fruit flies and PSA and in the early 2000’s the NZ govt were sued for millions of dollars for not protecting them adequately, hence the strict rules and regulations for entering NZ now.

Ironically, the kiwi is now exported to China and in recent times a red kiwi fruit has been created with picking commencing around 5 years ago, these fruit are very mild and not as flavoursome and very expensive! I can’t remember the full details, a person from China tried to take seeds back to China to grow Kiwi and was not only blocked from doing so but was heavily fined – hence why I find it ironic!

Final, fact readers…..this is the only area in NZ that all 5 types of beech tree grow and are managed mainly by conservation volunteers.