One of our day trips from Hokitika was to take a 30 minute drive over to the Hokitika Gorge. The area around the gorge was this nice 20 minute walk through the fern filled woods. There were a few clearings before we got to the gorge where you could see the extremely blue waters of the gorge and the bridge that allowed people to walk across it.
Pretty flowers on the walk to the gorge!
Blue waters at the Hokitika Gorge
The bridge was a small roped bridge that moved around a fair amount when walking on it. The gorge itself had some of the bluest waters that I have ever seen. We also spotted a few large salmon swimming in the current just under the bridge.
Sami on the rickety bridge!
Later that evening we took a drive out to some caves where glow worms were located. Glow worms are a type of worm that glow when it is dark out. They tend to hang out on cave walls, so there are a few different spots around town that you can go to see them. Luckily for us, Sami’s Aunt knew a place that was pretty remote and hard to find. It was interesting to see; looking up at the dark cave is a lot like looking up in the sky, with the glow-worms being stars. They were just all along the rocks and there were lots of them!
The glow worms cave entrance!
Hard to see, but you can see 2 small blue lights – those are the glow worms!
The day after we saw the glow worms we did a day trip up to Punakaiki to check out the blow holes. As the tide comes in the water splashes around causing water to launch upward through a series of holes formed in the rocks. We wandered around there for a few hours just as the tide was coming in and we got to see some water shoot out of the holes. There was also one that sounded a lot like a deep whoosh of air. We got some fairly decent photos of everything and headed back home for the evening.
Rough water around the blowholes.
More water splashing around.
There is clearly a lot of interesting things to see and do around the Hokitika area!
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