Splake Spolt: A West Coast Ramble to Okarito

Another long weekend and more glorious weather. We started with a romantic Valentine's Day dinner at Cape Foulwind,

then headed south to Punakaiki rocks the following morning.

A mere 500km later (and exactly nil traffic signals), we arrived in Okarito, famous as the only NZ breeding colony of white heron, or kotuku, and also home to the worlds rarest kiwi, the rowi, one of which we managed to see in the wild after a mere 4 hours in the bush and a litre of blood donated to the local mossies.
Oh yeah, Okarito is also really beautiful. The pics below were all taken on the way up to the Okarito Trig.

The two panoramas above cover 270 degrees of the view from the Okarito Trig. And below some details, including Fox Glacier:

The coast stretching North and South:

Te wahine toa!

and the tidal marsh at the bottom, where we heard fernbirds and saw an eel.

After a night at Jonathan and Julie's Ribonwood Retreat, we headed back to Greymouth, where Kristen's work mate Mike took Richard up for a spin in his flash yellow plane:

Along the coastal hills

Back to the Punakaiki Rocks, this time from above:

Then back to town (a great view of the Grey River flowing out of the valley)

We also got a tip from Mike and Heather that we might be able to spot a rare blue duck, te whio, along the Styx River. After a fair bit of rock-hopping, slip scrambling and river crossing, we came upon a pair, who luckily were not shy.