Week 2: On to the West Coast!

After 9 days spent first near Christchurch on the south island's central east coast, and a week on the northeast corner in Marlborough, we've now moved 350 km west and south to the central west coast. We've had a weeklong stay just south of Greymouth in another Airbnb studio apartment, about 300 yards from the beach, and with a rather nice sunset view of the breakers on the Tasman Sea.  So far, we're really pleased with our Airbnb bookings- really nice little apartments with pretty much everything you need to feel at home!

The landscape here on the West Coast is dramatically different from that on the east.  There we had wide open valleys FILLED with vineyards (more grapes than we've seen anywhere in the world, and we've been to a lot of wine regions!), and short but steep, densely wooded hills around the Marlborough Sounds.
The West Coast, at least much of what we've seen so far, is more reminiscent of Big Sur or the NorCal Sonoma coast, with sheep & dairy cattle on all the valleys.  Lots of deep gorges and coastal cliffs, and some really cool geology at places like Pancake Rocks, which looks like Bryce Canyon if the Pacific Ocean were to reach there!
The gorges are equally stunning, with some carved deep out of soft sediments with fast running streams, and others from super hard schist but worn down my huge volumes of glacial meltwater like at Hokitaki Gorge.
In addition to the striking topography of this gorge, the unique turquoise water color is truly amazing!

Another thing that's really cool about almost all of New Zealand is the completely bizarre plantlife that one finds whenever you get into the native "bushlands." Many places look like like sets from Jurassic Park, with giant tree ferns and dozens of other odd trees that look like they were dreamed up by Dr. Suess...
Lots of our walks are also wandering through old abandoned gold mining and coal mining works, with lots of tunnels and odd earthworks.  It's amazing how resilient some of these landscapes are 100+ years after what must have looked like a war zone... 

So... We've just finished our second week, so it's time to move further south into more alpine terrain. We'll catch up next week from way down south in "Fiordland!"
Cheers :-)

Comments

  1. Julie HandFebruary 16, 2026 at 5:45 AM

    Just catching up on your recent posts…Looks like you found some unique and lovely places to stay and having a wonderful time so far!! Thanks for sharing!!
    -J

    ReplyDelete

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