Friday 14th Nov. 

Next stop Hokitika. After coffee we walked down to the beach and along to the river estuary. In The Luminaries (by Eleanor Catton) there is a very good account of how tricky the entrance was for boats serving the gold mining town in the 1800's with the beach littered with wrecks. Now it looks an impossible entrance for anything other than kayaks and surfers.
There was another interesting museum to peruse in the grand former town hall and a wonderfuly tatty  vinyl record shop with a good collection of 60's and 70's music. The proprietor  was suitably hippy and keen to chat. He was sited a little way away from the main shopping centre and I wondered if the miriad of mostly chinese tourists were likely to find him or be interested in his eclectic collection.  

Our bnb was up the Hokitika river and we stopped for a picnic lunch beside a side stream that invited exploration, crossing on stepping stones , looking for gold ingots and finding nuggets of greenstone (or slightly green tinged pebbles if one is being less optimistic).

 

We carried on past the bnb to Lake Kanieri  and had a short walk by the lake and explored pretty Dorothy falls. Enjoyed a swim in the lake while Diana dipped her toes from the safety of a watery bench.

 The bnb was a very snug converted shed in the grounds of a former salmon farm which had been recently purchased by the current owners
The little lake which had been pleasantly landscaped had presumably not been a succesful salmon growing recepticle but made for a beautiful outlook and we could sit by the fire pit as the sun set, enjoying the view.