HOKITIKA!

Things wound down quickly after the glacier experience. We left Franz Josef for Christchurch, stopping for a few hours in Hokitika, then switching to Coast-to-Coast Daily Bus Service for the rest of the way (with a brief stop at Arthur's Pass). The traveling took all day, leaving us with one final evening in Christchurch before flying home the next day.

When we stopped in Hokitika, we had a few hours to kill, so we walked around the tiny -- and I mean tiny -- town. Hokitika used to be a jade mining town, and it had the feel of a ghost town from the Old West. There were no people in the streets, the little shops were mostly run by stone, wood, and glass artisans, there were no cars driving around, everything looked old and untouched...

We walked over to the beach, maybe 100 meters away. The morning had been clear, bright, and sunny, almost hot. The beach had a weird vibe, with all the flotsam and jetsam washed upon the shore. It extended the city's look of abandonment.

I was fascinated by the thick clusters of sea foam washing up and then being pushed around by the wind, so I took a short digital video with my camera. The basic microphone couldn't filter out the blast of the winds, so bear that in mind.

This was our third encounter with the Tasman Sea, and it revealed yet another of its many facets. At Milford the water was dark and murky, at Knight's Point it was jewel-toned and glistening, and here in Hokitika the waves reminded me of the beaches back home in Southern California.

On the topic of extreme variety of climates within a tiny range of land -- and in this case, in one spot alone: before our two hours were up in Hokitika, the weather switched from scorchingly sunny to a dark, heavy downpour.

266 Southern California waves	267 wasteland	268 lone church	269 scattered
270 stuff	271 shadow & footprint	sea foam (3.2 MB video)
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