North Of Kaikoura

The road north of Kaikoura, toward Blenheim and Picton, was one of the South Island's most picturesque...great seascapes, colonies of fur seals, pups frolicking in pools.... Now it is mostly a many-miles-long construction site, with very few places to stop and look. And many circulation alternees, as our French friends would say. And open only during daylight hours as we passed through. There were scores of landslides in the hills/mountains above the road, and cleaning up the millions of tons of rubble, re-engineering and reconstructing, has taken many months. Work continues, but the vital link with the ferry at Picton (and tourists) is open again.

Another innovative use of containers...

Sea-bed rise

New beaches, new lagoons

Old debris

A changed landscape and seascape

Kaikoura, 2018

Kaikoura was a place we particularly enjoyed toward the end of our 2014 South Island stay, and we were sure to return in 2018. Yet more surprises awaited us. The major road work south of town might have been a clue, but we dismissed it as routine. It was not.

The Lewis Pass leads you eventually to the sea and some of the
better seascapes on the South Island

Seagull City

Toward Kaikoura

We'd hoped to see more porpoise entertainment, such as we saw
 in 2014, but there were only a few to be seen

Parked at the beautiful mile-long Norfolk Island Pine-lined
beachfront at Kaikoura

First sign of trouble: fence around the Mayfair

Shorter version: in November, 2016, there was a 7.8 earthquake
in Kaikoura; two persons died; relatively few buildings were
seriously damaged, mostly older ones; the real problem was that
two of the three roads that link Kairkoura with the outside
were severed and took many, many months to repair and restore;
and the seabed rose anywhere from 1 to 5 meters (!) in Kairkoura
and the once beautiful seascoast north of town

Storefront display on what happened...the store among those
closed

Container shoppes, as in ChCh

But life goes on, the roads are now open (during daylight hours),
and the tourists are back

Memorial garden walk...the arches are ancient whale jaw bones

The white-capped rocks give some indication of sea-bed rise;
looking toward the marina, which had to be re-dredged so the
whale-watching boats could use them again

Very old and beautiful N. I. Pines line the beach boulevard

At the marina

Lewis Pass

At Punakaiki we decided to leave the rain-sodden, bug-infested west coast and head across the island on the Lewis Pass, eventually to Kaikoura, which we much enjoyed in 2014.

Stopped for lunch at the Slab Hut Creek campground and fossicking
area

Board walk to bathroom

In case you don't know what fossicking is--we didn't--and we
didn't do any since I left our pan in storage in Montana

The Creek; note the little channel to the right

In Reefton, a bubble-blowing machine in one of the residences
on main street, to amuse visitors

Thus

Many interesting shoppes, especially collectibles

Royal Doulton Shakespearian dishes

Child's (toy) chain saw

In another shoppe, with hundreds of dolls (but no Sweetie Pie)

Quite a few Chuckies

The Fairlie Engine, 1878; articulated to navigate severe curves
in the mountains

Big-time mining town, once

Interesting little town

The Lewis Pass is said to be less dramatic than the Arthur Pass;
well, we didn't find the Arthur Pass very dramatic, and the Lewis
Pass had its moments

Another east-bound outwash plain, heading toward the coast;
we're still looking for the Clark Pass; we spent the night at a
designated Freedom Camp in Rotheram