This would be my farewell tour of the West Coast, land that I love. My last opportunity to say goodbye to dear friends and sneak in a few caving trips while I am at it. For the first couple days I was joined by Carolyn who said I "owed her a caving adventure"- she was probably right! After passing a stormy night at Mary's place we carried on up the coast in fine weather. The sort of sunny weather where you feel justified in putting off going caving as long as possible. With this philosophy in mind we stopped to look at the sea caves at Razorback Point, drove up Bullock Creek and explored the hidden beachlet past the Truman Track beach. Light rays filtered through the tops of nikau palms and the heavy air. Through the second sea cave, we emerged at a beautiful beach within a sea cave overhang.
We had lunch at the Fox River mouth before I admitted to myself that
we should probably go caving. We drove onto the Four Mile Road near
Charleston, packed up, and set off for Winchhead Cave. Fortunately the cave was easy to find. While the cave was relatively straightforward, due to the quality of the survey it took me quite some time to be able to locate ourselves on the cave map. We killed a few hours exploring just about every nook and cranny in the cave, including a couple decent stream passages.
With still a bit of day left, I proposed a walk along the sea cliffs near Charleston. The sea was raging in full force at the headland between Constant and Joyce bays. We climbed out to a spot just beyond the reach of the waves and enjoyed the show. We continued on down the coast to where the climbing cliffs are and watched the sun set from atop the cliffs. After my failed attempt to find the Charleston cave base, we pulled into the Charleston motor camp where we happened to run into Neil Thorpe.
The next day we walked up the Fox River to visit Babylon Cave, one of my favorites on the coast. We had a great trip lasting much of the day and saw many wonderful sights. I think Carolyn had a good cave trip, which was my goal. We then popped into Paul's place at 12 Mile to catch up with Paul and Karen. Some great stories and great hospitality. After a great feed, I had a good sleep in a sleepout cantilevered over the ocean.
After dropping Carolyn off at Greymouth I spent the rest of the day weathering the poor weather at Mary's place. I then drove on to Paul's place and ended up going for a paddle up the Porari River with Paul's friend Leon. The river was running high from the recent rain which meant a hearty workout paddling upstream. We had to portage a few of the riffles, but most we could paddle through by catching eddies and then powering through the flow. The scenery was fantastic- the Porari is probably the most intimate of the limestone valleys of the Punakaiki syncline. Once we were satisfied with our workout we headed back downstream. What probably took us an hour or more now only took about 10 minutes! Later we went to town for a meal and a rock climb in Greymouth's very nice rock gym.
The following day Paul, Leon and I went caving in Abyssinia Cave up Bullock Creek. It was my first visit to the cave so I enjoyed seeing the geology and figuring out what the cave is doing. Embarrassingly I mixed up my scallop flow direction indications, but came right in the end. I found the way into the pretty formation area and also through a rockfall which led to the rest of the cave. It was a short but satisfying trip. Later eight of us had a grand family style feast at 12 Mile, followed by a slideshow and tango and salsa dancing.
The next day was beautiful and sunny. I did not want to leave the coast, and had an open invitation to stay, but knew I needed to head back. I lounged around in the sun before eventually calling it a day and driving back over Arthur's Pass and back to Dunedin via the backroads of Canterbury. Farewell West Coast.
Thanks to Carolyn, Mary, Paul, Leon, Karen and the rest of the West Coast Bohemians.
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