We spent a very pleasant morning clearing out from the riverside campsite before continuing along the road, following the Buller Gorge down its steep sided winding route to the West coast. The heavily forested valleys plunged straight into the banks of the wide river gently snaking between boulders deep below us.

After around 30km there was much excitement and an emergency u-turn was deployed to follow up a possible kiwi sighting! The mythical beast was still present on the roadside for our return journey but its nose was deemed too small and being the middle of the day, our conclusion was that it was unlikely to be a kiwi. You'll see from the cover photo for today why our suspicions were raised after a passing roadside glance! Sadly the photo is from a later sighting that day as the SLR was set up with a 10 second timer delay, great for selfies, less useful for driveby kiwi snapping... Doh!

The majority of the raw beauty of the surroundings were missed by Bob who was having to use every ounce of concentration to navigate the wiggly road, dodge its other users and pilot the Enema across numerous rickety wooden bridges. Endless roadworks (with significantly less attractive stop/go people than the North Island) made driving even more hazardous, especially around un-signalled, single track, blind bends under thousands of tons of suspended potential rock slide.

With only a few waved fists, to which we waved politely back, we reached the uninspiring mining town of Westport, described very accurately by the lonely planet as a 'one horse town which had lost its horse...'

We had coffee and to appease yesterdays officious little policeman bought a new tax disc (and holder) from the post office before heading out to Cape Foulwind. Although beautifully calm today, the navigational horrors listed on the information boards easily justify its naming by Captain Cook, though all I could think of were Dad and Chris the morning after a onion soup incident.

Over a gorgeously sunny lunch our kiwi impersonator made another appearance. It was a strange, large, flightless, brown feathered beast with an inquisitive, heron-like head, equipped with a medium length beak, longish red legs and a stumpy hen pheasants tail. We called him Ian. Ian provided much entertainment and had a particular penchant for bread and fingers before stalking back into the undergrowth.

Whilst walking up to the lighthouse on the Cape and en route to the fur seal colony we encountered many of Ian's colleagues before eventually a notice board confirmed his proper name was in fact 'Western Weka' and he was sadly in decline, mostly due to his bold and inquisitive nature. This was very evident as we watched a brace of them trying to make friends with a fur seal amongst the surf... We continued South.

The coast road was like a scene from Jurassic park, towering limestone cliffs, sculpted by the elements reached high to our left, foliage and even punghas seemingly impossibly clinging to their scalloped rock face. To our right the Tasman sea pounded against the shore where apparently tiny blue penguins (smurfs) battled to catch fish to bring back to their burrows under the road. Awestruck we arrived at the pancake rocks and blowholes at Punakaiki which added some fine detail to the mega-scape in the form of intricate layers, perfectly balanced on top of each other in stacks. The network of pillars was being ravaged by the waves which surged into the various caves under huge arches causing blowholes to erupt and a cacophony of sound to be released.

We returned to Punakaiki and checked in to our beachside campsite before enjoying a cold drink and planning our ongoing route on the verandah at the local tavern. No further forward, I went for a run along the beach, in very deep shingle, followed by a quick dash into the surf, trying to dodge the ferocious riptides. Bob enjoyed her book and we reassembled on the beach for dips and drinks, driftwood art and to watch the sun sink below a cloud bank out to sea. It was in danger of being romantic.

We returned to the chaos of the communal kitchen and opted to eat our stirfry in the front of the Enema before turning in, listening to the surf crashing just 50 metres away as I write this.