THE THREE ALPHA TRAVEL

Ready for my second Great Walk and after a very rainy day in Karamea we consult the DOC office (Department Of Conservation) before we start. They say it is all good to go! Stefania is not equipped at all for the walk but it should be OK. The problem here is that the track is not circular like the Kepler but one way, so we send the things we do not want to carry by post to the next city; Takaka.

After doing the Kepler, this one seems easy enough even if it is longer (80 kms) and also a four day track. The first day is the most spectacular one as we follow the Tasman beach and the weather is brilliant for it. On the third day in the hut, Nils appears. He has decided to do the track too but in one day less! I am happy to see him and we all complete the track together. He has left his car on the end of the track and he’ll now take it to go back to Westport to pick up Tinka (that has moved from Karamea in the meanwhile). I know… complicated! In any case we’ll meet again in Takaka.

The Heaphy river from the Heaphy Track

It is the first time I’ll be on a bus here in NZ. It is funny but it seems there is no “normal” service running. The driver is explaining the sights we pass to our left and right. He even stops the bus for us to take photos! I decide immediately that is the last time I board on a NZ bus as well. Arriving at Franz Josef I guessed I would have the same feeling as in Queenstown. Not many things to do unless you pay for an “activity”. So I book a guided walk on the glacier and then I will find out I could have done this myself – fair enough though I did not have the equipment I needed. It results not being so bad but still it could be better. From here on I decide to hitchhike.

After three (!!!) hours of waiting, Oracio from Chile picks me up and he drops me to Hokitika. I have no plans anyway so I stay there one night. It is a very small and quiet town and the good thing is I meet two Irish girls that can give me a lift towards up north. They are going to Westport but on the way to there we pass from Greymouth (transalpine train connection to Christchurch) and in Punakaiki we see the infamous Pancake Rocks and its blowhole – too crowded for my taste. Just before Westport we also visit the Seal Colony.

As the history has it, in Westport I meet an Italian girl called Stefania. We decide to hitchhike together from there to the north without any particular plan. Karamea is the most northern point on this road and it results easy to reach. As a town is totally small and unimportant but it captured me for a reason. Smaller than Westport is still a thousand times more interesting. We are staying at an ex-rugby-bunk-bed-shelter in front of a well… rugby field. There we team up with a German couple; Nils and Tinka, good guys and good cooks! We stay in Karamea for two nights and decide to do the Heaphy Track, another great walk!