Day 48, in which we pass Foul Wind and Puke

We packed up the car, bade Stewart The Horse farewell and continued our drive north along the West Coast. We had only a few important stops on route, first of which was the charmingly named Puke Pub in Pukekura. The pub was closed, unfortunately, and the musty Bushmans Lodge across the road was too unpleasantly stuffed with animal parts and sorry looking pies to be worth more than a toilet break. We pressed on north to the city of Greymouth, the largest settlement we've visited since first arriving (and driving straight out of) Christchurch. After a sandwich at the very lovely DP1 Café, we departed the very unlovely Greymouth as quickly as possible.

We had heard great things about this part of the West Coast, but a sudden rainstorm meant we were not well placed to enjoy it. At one point we had the windscreen wipers at full speed and still visibility was so poor we couldn't make out the coastline beyond. Thankfully the storm was over by the time we reached Pancake Rocks, which I had imagined to be a series of individual rocks which sat low and flat in the sea but which were in fact tall towers resembling a stack of American pancakes (thankfully, as this made for a much more interesting sight).

A walkway has been built through the tropical foliage out onto Pancake Rocks, offering superb views of the rock formations, and it was a superb example of how a natural phenomenon can be sympathetically exploited for tourism. Somewhat less successful was Cape Foulwind, a clumsy walkway to a rather unremarkable lookout point over a very poorly populated seal colony. My favourite aspects of visiting Cape Foulwind were the boysenberry ice-cream and the skittish little flightless bird who befriended me in return for the ice-cream cone.

We turned right and headed up into the mountains, passing a series of increasingly small settlements until finally reaching our home for tonight, the Alpine Lodge in St Arnaud. St Arnaud is a tiny settlement nestled between mountains on the edge of Lake Rotoiti in the Nelson Lakes National Park. The local tourist industry appears to be entirely dominated by the giant Alpine Lodge, which comprises a higher end hotel, a backpackers hostel, a really nice restaurant and a more relaxed café. You could almost expect the locals to resent this monopoly, if only the couple who run it were not so friendly.

After a short walk down to Lake Rotoiti – where we contemplated taking a swim, before falling foul again of the wicked sandfly – we retired to the lodge restaurant for a superb meal before bed.