One thing we didn’t do back in 2007 was explore Hokitika Gorge and we were keen to visit it this time around! However after waking up and swopping over our campervan the heavens opened and rain set in for the day. After a chat with Kevin (at Links View Holiday Park). we settled on a driving route to Lake Kaniere that would take us past Dorothy Falls and up to the Gorge in the hope that the rain would pass and we could get out and explore.
As we drove through the beautiful valley to Lake Kaniere we decided to stop for a short walk at Canoe Cove – it was a magical walk through the trees to a misty but peaceful lake setting.
Returning to the campervan we continued to drive through the mist a little further up the road to Dorothy Falls – we nearly missed it but pulled over at the small parking space for an exploration of these stunning falls – I would love to return on a summers day and swim here as it would be amazing!
The photos really don’t do these falls justice, so if you love waterfalls and find yourself in Hokitika they are definitely one to visit! Check out the walks we did and others on the DOC website here, or stay at Links View and your hosts will give you a local perspective on where to visit!
As we drove away from the falls and up to the gorge, the rain started to fall harder and we agreed that once we got there we would park, make lunch and hope it stops! Sadly the rain continued to get worse, so we decided to sit in the campervan and read for a bit before heading back down to Hokitika. Sadly it was too wet to walk this time so we will have to put Hokitika Gorge on our list for our next visit to New Zealand.
We returned to Links View, and decided that it was a night for a pizza tea, which we ordered from the local takeway. Dave want to collect this whilst Sarah worked! The pizzas were amazing – we hadn’t had pizza for a whilst so it may have been not having anything to compare them too but they surpassed the ones we’re used to from Dominos at home by miles!
After dinner we piled into Kevin’s car – with a lot of other guests and visited the local glow worm cave – in 2007 we paid a lot of money to go on an organised trip to see glow worms, but this was so much better and FREE! We walked up slowly and were amazed by how may glow worms there were, the girls had never seen anything like it and were both in awe. The night ended with Kevin stopping to buy sweets on the way back – supposedly for the girls but we knew that he wanted some too!