Fox River, The Cave, Bush mission and Hokitika

So After we explored the area.

The land entrance to the cave

Kurt doing some fire bending 

Wolf relaxing

We set up camp and gathered wood to build our fire "we had a little trouble getting the fire started, but after a short while fire was made".

It was now getting dark, and we had our warmth.. So we decided to make some rice. Using what we had collected we boiled water and sat waiting for our Kawakawa tea to be ready. As the night continued we thought of how Geoff would find us ??? But as it stood this was the perfect place to stay with the coming storm.
We thought we were, smoking out a seal in the depth of the cave, but we were actually just terrorising the penguin all day.
The cave was damp and dark.
The vibration of the waves echoed through our cave and although the bugs were biting we didn't use bug spray (because we didn't have any).
It was a sort of magical place, knowing that so many Maori's have lived in this very cave without the luxury of modern society, its such a treat to experience.
The floor was dirt, which the Maori's back in the day had place there so that they would be raised above the incoming tide. it was placed upon huge Kauri trees that were cut by Green stone hatch's, the markings were still visible on the wood. It's amazing how we spotted the cave just as the Maori would have back in those times. As we sat around the fire we came up with a little jam that we would like to share.

After finishing our first song we came up with another.

After our jam and some more food we decided it was time to migrated to our tent. Before sleeping Kurt displayed his concern about the smoke, so we moved our tent into a more ventilated area. 
During the night we were woken by the mixture of sounds, from the waves crashing, to dragging stones as the tide left, to the blue penguins chatting away to each other. It was simply nourishing to know places like this cave exist. We felt safer in this cave than anywhere else, we had made this very destination our home, and although just visitors to the life around us, it was enlightening.

In the morning we woke to a chilly surrounding we started a new fire.. Our day was revolved around how we could get a hold of Geoff?? there was a storm outside. Howling winds and heavy rain, we wait till noon before a plan came into mind.
The weather gave us a brake so we decided to leave the comfort of the cave in search of reception. As we walked, we couldn't help but notice this rough and jagged rock that looked like a sail it was a beautiful sight. Pillars of stone sticking out from within the watery surroundings, waves colliding and the roar of the ocean.
As we kept on walking our phones still could not find any signal. We were told to go to a curtain area and we might find it.

Apparently a reception area

Kurt struggles to find reception

we continued walking down this road. as we got to the end of it..... it start too rain heavily.. We looked around there was a digger and a truck lined up, we check if they were open, but they were locked, the rain was coming down by the bucket. So I decided to climb under the this truck, Kurt was still rummaging around to find somewhere out of the rain. I yelled out "its pretty comfy under here" and he climbed under.

Our cosy quarters under a truck

We ended up spending 10 minutes under the truck, while we wait from the rain to pass. After it stopped Kurt was sceptical to excite, but I jumped on out. The rain had passed, and we began our search once again.
After having no luck we walked to a house and asked an old couple if we could use there phone. We called Geoff, but he didn't pick up... So Kurt left a message that clearly stated our location "Geoff, its Kurt we are at Fox river in a Cave that's connected to the beach it's to the west of the Road when heading South." and that was it. Now all we could do is wait. Walking back into the cave to warm up.. Having very little to eat we needed to occupy our time, so we decided to do some bouldering (rock-climbing without a harness, at low heights, horizontally) ..

After that we came back to the fire to warm up once again, we then improved our living courters by collecting stones and making a pavement, so our feet wouldn't get dirty when entering our tent, also we made a wind break out of the wood we collect throughout the day..

At nearly dark we heard a flute like noise coming into our cave. It was Geoff!! he'd found us.
We sat around sharing stories for the rest of the night before we went to sleep.
And as usual, the penguins came out and the waves roared through the night.

In the Morning we all relaxed.

Playing music by the fire

The cave

Geoff's ankle was pretty sore from trying to find us (he didn't check his messages but instead called the number back, unfortunately he spoke to an old lady that could hardly speak and all he got from it was that we were at fox river in a cave, so he ended up walking an hour or 2 on a bung ankle upto the fox river caves thinking we were there, we weren't but somehow through luck he found us). So he rested while we searched the area out side, as the weather had finally passed.
We climbed on top of the cave, which was a little mountain. It felt like a little forest.. after viewing it decided to come down. on the way back we found some "supple-jack vine" which we used to absail down the side of the cliff.

After that we were still bored. so we had an awesome plan to jumping into the Fox river and have the out going tide pull as around and into the cave.. It was extremely fun being dragged out and going Hypothermic was more comfortable than we thought it would be. the warm rush that turns the cold feeling into a hot one.. Before leaving the cave earlier, we stocked up our fire so we wouldn't freeze to death when we drifted in from the sea :)
Now we warmed up, and left Geoff at the cave as we walked up to see the Fox river Caves. It was a 45 minute journey crossing river beds and small rapids.

Us arriving at the entrance to the cave -

It was indulging. We ended up walking into the cave for several hours.. it was dark and gloomy, almost alien like. as we continued we looked upon the calcium deposits which must be millions of years old. and to think these simple things are just growing in size continuously.

As we got to the end of the cave we turned off the lights to see what it would be like if our flash light ran out of batteries.. It was dark. so dark it felt like we had our eye closed, when they were open. so we stood in the dark and hummed, the vibration was unreal. after spending several hours in the cave we exited. feeling as if we might have time warped.

Simple things like sight allow us to see great complexities,  it's funny how being born with a gift like this makes one forget how special it is.

On our walk back to the cave we ran into some disturbed tourist. Who apparently nearly died crossing this river ??? we both found it kind of pathetic as the river couldn't have been running that hard to almost kill someone. anyhow they where traumatised so much so that they didn't want to cross it, so Kurt and I helped then... "Geoff went up to this cave the night before looking for us and stumbled across the same tourist who clam to have meet Geoff, as Geoff described they were behind him as he was walking and crossed the river. saying it wasn't to bad.." Anyhow they insisted on telling us there story, frankly I was bored of it and so was Kurt.
As we walked with them we spotted some young goats. And I was hungry, Kurt and I look at each other and said "dinner" the tourist pleaded with us to not try hunt the goats. However they had no idea that we had been eating milk powder and sugar for the pass several days and that goats are such bad pests. so we gave them the option of being our dinner instead. they weren't to happy with the comment so we both ripped off our shirts, and crossed an even harder part of the river by swimming across it.
We were so hungry that we didn't think about our approach and ending up failing. all our minds could think about was how nice it would have tasted.
We failed and so that was it, so frustrated we made our way back to the cave. running into the same tourist but we had nothing to say to them as they had distracted us and now we had to eat mouldy rice with milk powder and sugar.

Arriving back and there was Geoff sitting in front of the fire playing his tin whistle. We told him about our encounters.
After a Milk and sugar drink we decided to make a huge fire. we collected as much wood as we could. for we had decided that we where leaving to Arans the next day.
we stacked and built the fire as large as we could. It became so hot that it started drying out the cave, and so large the flame hit the ceiling.
We did some epic chanting, for this was our last night , although we will surely return some day.

In the morning we parted with Geoff, and began biking well he hitched.

It was another beautiful day to bike and we made pace.

We stopped at the pancake rocks, they were very interesting but the amount of tourist made the event seem fake and meaningless.. although the rocks are quiet astonishing.

We continued again trying not to stop to often, although we were still running on milk and sugar and were running low on energy. We had a little break and finished off what was left of our food. soon after we notice we had just arrived into Grey Mouth which was around the corner.
We stopped at the Countdown. and then continued on to Arans.. only 30 odd km to go.. we used the cycle way. it was quiet amazing having many natives around on this little track, to bad it was light gravel, so we were actually making worse pace than if we were on the road.
We made it to the end of the track... Kurt and I were very confused so we checked his phone on our direction. "What!! We rode past Aran's ?? that's crazy!!" Frustrated we started riding back the direction we came. It didn't feel right and we were both pretty annoyed. We pulled over, to check it again to be sure......... We were going the right way some how the GPS on his phone messed up.. so we had just back tracked 10 kms which meant an extra 20 km was added to the trip by the time we got to Arans. Geoff was there when we arrived and I Finally after several years got to catch up with Aran once again
Melissa who is Arans girlfriend greets us, Kurt has met her before but since I've been in Canada studying the last two years I'd missed out on a lot. so I finally got to meet her. We spent one day there and seeing as they were working we decided to go green stone hunting in the rain.

It was lovely to catch up but we had a little adventure that we still had to go on. And considering Aran and Melissa had to work, we left hitchiking back up to Fox river to go bush.

It didn't take long for us to get back to fox river. Driving in a car is pretty effective.
And we made it to what's called the ball room (a huge rock overhang the shelters the area below from the weather.... Looks like a giant spaceship is hover above you) in no time. (our photos are really terrible and fail to show the vast scale of the place)

Geoff eating

Part of the overhang

Our campsite

Kurt walking up to the campsite

We still had day light on our side so we gathered wood, as we would now need a fire to keep us warm as we left our tent at Arans.
It started to rain as it the light faded and the temperature drop significantly. the night was cold and later we found out it was around 4 degrees Celsius, luckily we had a nice fire to keep us warmish through the night, and yes it was a long night as the fire would die out and we would have to take turns waking up and restocking it..
In the morning it was colder than expected, but we really wanted to find a goat. so we got our things together and headed out on the scout. We scouted and waited for many hours and nothing. It was disappointing but there was nothing we could do, so we started collecting more wood.. 
Just before night fall, we had several tourist coming to seek warmth as they walked into the bush to check out the Ball room where we had set up camp. we offered them warmth by our fire before they headed out.
It was now right on dark when another traveller entered the area. she was from Chicago USA we offered to her that she could share our fire. so she joined us.
We chatted, through out the night. We all decided that it would be a good idea to throw Geoff's Butane canister onto the fire, it was a great idea until it went BOOM! and embers went everywhere, putting holes through out our gear. which is awesome seeing as our stuff needed to get a little wear on it :). The noise was great though as the Ball room amplified the sound and it continued to echoe down stream bouncing of the huge mountain sides. It just sucked getting holes in our sleeping bags (and seeing the precious feathers fly out), shorts bags. Plus I think the overly friendly Weka, who would scavenge the area thought it was a bit loud, although it didn't stop him from coming back and eating our potatoes.

Through out the night Geoff tried to kill a possum which climb around our area. Failing to kill it, we hid our food and slept coldly through the chilly night.

In the morning the American parted ways with us. We waiting until the sun came up and then journeyed back to civilisation.
After a long time of us boys hanging out it was time to part with Geoff. It was lovely to hang out, but he had his mission and we had ours.
We waited for a little while for a ride, but then got one with an interesting old couple who dropped us at Arans front door.


For the next couple of days we waited for the storms to past. but nothing came about. while on a little ride into Grey Mouth, Kurt's bag got caught in his back tire causing a fatal 7 spokes to be broken. I continued and rode into grey mouth finding a deal where the trust worthy bike store owner "by the name of Scott" allowed us to come in while he was not there and use his tools to fix it. Thanks Scott

Now we wait until it's the right time to move as the weather seems pretty unpredictable and we have no-one we know until Invercargil. Haha at least the one certainty is that the temperatures in Wanaka and Queens town will be hitting negatives next week when we get there!!

This time in Hokitika has been spent reconnecting with one of our best friend Aran. thanks for having us man. Much love.

Aran making pizza

Some sushi we made (new food we can make on the road)

Meme crocheting

Nelson heading to Fox River

As we began to leave, it felt like the right time. we'd made the island our home for those several days, meeting Bunji was a pleasure and I hope we get to sail with him one day. Possibly to Fiji ??? so keep an eye out there might be another adventure around the corner :)

It was a beautiful day, with crisp fresh air, a hot sun shining, and a cool breeze.. we first started by taking Bunji out to his boat, for he was taking his family sailing for Easter weekend. After we dropped him at his boat, allowing us to use his dingy we motored into the city, saying our peace we parted.

It was a beautiful time spent out there catching up with old friends and making new ones. Saxton island, you've found a specially little place in both of our hearts.

After grabbing our bikes from the strangers castle where we left our bikes, we packed up and shifted out. the ride was very easy into Richmond, the bike lanes and all.
We stopped into Geoff's course to see him and have our selves another good bye. But while there he showed us a piece of bush on the internet that we couldn't not go exploring. We all decided that we would meet near the Pan Cake rocks two days from now.
So that was it we had made the arrangement. Leaving we said goodbye and goodbye to a couple of his class mates which we had met.

Back onto the road with nothing but tarmac and distance to cover we pushed ahead, we encountered our first of many hills, it was longer than excepted though it was thoroughly enjoyable, this first hill was called Spooners Range and we made it up with ease. It would have had a beautiful view of Nelson if it wasn't for the Pine trees right in front of the look out. While sitting there, a little Weka joined us and soon left.

Enough time wasted we still needed to make more ground before getting too relaxed.
The down hill was long and enjoyable, the sun still glistering its orange rays on us... we continued until I yelled out "peach tree"
We pulled over, hot and stinky we removed our back packs which dripped of our sweat. Put them on the ground and picked some peaches. The odd thing was that these peaches had the typical orange skin but a red flesh... they were sweet and soft. We pack up several and continued on. This same road around 4 km ahead held a apple tree in the middle of this farm.
Seeing red pebbles all over it we had to stop. We parked up our bikes then jumped the fence and approached it. To our surprise this apple tree was towering... holding thousands of apples we selected only the finest apples we could find. These apples were so big you could only hold one with two hands. After stocking up our bags with enough to assist us on our journey, we thanked the tree and headed on our way..
The mix of beautiful Native tree's made the land scape seem unreal. As if you have entered into a new land that's never been discovered before. Everything looks like its in harmony, for all the trees consider each other sometimes even growing off each other. Such a lush green, it made me imagine an array of mystical creatures that could have galloped this land.

We found a little spot next to a river where we decided to camp. while preparing our dinner we were accompanied by a little robin which shared its songs with us. Throughout the whole night all we could hear were the songs of nature, where water running over stones and the wind flowing through trees acted as the instruments.

In the morning while packing up, the little robin came and farewelled us on our journey. As we began our bike it was sad to see that we where placed in such a beautiful place that was right next to massive destruction in the form of deforestation.. A whole landscape of mountains torn up for lumber, although that was miss fortunate, we came across some lovely natives ahead..
As we climb our first hill that morning we finally deciding to listen to music, we pushed quite easily to get to the top. as we reached the top we parked our bikes and went to the look out.

Coming down the hill is always the most fun of all. And the more we escalated downwards, the faster and steeper it became. we hit whooping speeds! and meanwhile we had beautiful scenery to fix our eyes on.With the sun on our backs, riding through this gully next to the Buller River was pretty chilly.

By mid day we made our way into Murchison, a small town of the west coast of the south island. We stopped only long enough to get water and to look at a map in the information centre.. Nothing to exciting, it looked like this little town must get cold in the winter.
We then continued until we reached the "Buller Swing Bridge" we contemplated going in because it was a $10 entry fee for both of us. But we did, and it was a lot of fun.. crossing the swing bridge was hilarious and we made two Travellers feel as if they were going to fall off the bridge from because we were swinging it.. "sorry, but it was fun" :)
The Buller swing bridge connected the main road to a bit of conserved nature, with native trees and birds throughout the walk. We decided to go for a swim in the river.. "It is also a jet boating area which is pretty neat."

Getting back on track we  walked and walked, all around this little park.. it wasn't that cool to be honest. But as we did travel the area, we found an awesome rock jump.. We looked to see if it was deep enough and it look it so we jumped.

After jumping, Kurt told me he hit his jaw and it hurt "like taking a hook to the face, he had trouble chewing for the next two days due to the bruising." while walking back we noticed this girl who was working there as the flying fox thingys supervisor... We started chatting, she normally runs white water rafting as a guide but due to low numbers she had to do this job instead.... Lame! anyhow as we kept chatting, she soon offered to takes us white water rafting for free, this sounded like an awesome idea. But we couldn't have stayed around for a few days as we where meeting Geoff to go into the bush shortly. She gave us her number and if we make it back she'll take us.. Sounds like a deal!
As we continued we rode along side the Bulller River, it was beautiful, with steep cliffs and fast rushing water. The sounds where astonishing.

It started to get late and our leg soon couldn't push much at all. we came to a stop at a place which we could camp.. But as in the past we would stop merely kms from an actual camp site so instead of making camp there we continued and sure enough just up the road was an epic camp-site  We set up, had our dinner, played some music then went to sleep.

In the morning there was a beautiful moon

But the Sand flies where starting to get quiet annoying so we packed up and started riding cause we where getting eaten!!

It was a beautiful day and our ride ahead was going to be amazing. The Gorge was unreal, with the Buller River on our side the whole way in. Crystal clear water, and Native trees everywhere.

I wish I could explain it better but it was just beautiful, the best scenery we've seen so far. And as we exited the mountains, there was west port. the farm land was some of the best we've seen, as they had huge Native trees sprinkled about them.

When we arrived into West Port we stopped at a New World and had a feed.

Now starting back up was pretty tiresome. our knees started getting built up with pressure and the lactic acid in our legs started to come about. The hills ahead held so much beauty, we climbed them and it was as if we where riding on top of "and this is a Barrier Reference" The white cliffs. the same scenery but the only thing that was different was that we had the view of larger mountains on our left. With Towering trees like that off Avatar "the one with the blue guys :)" and having Manuka shrubs actually blending into the mix. It all seemed to work together. And while we where still biking we finally made it to the top, it was an array of ups and downs but we had made it to the west coast. And you gotta love downhills as an entrance.

We took a little break to see were we needed to be.

As we biked a long we saw caves popping up all down the coast. We both got Super excited, and we knew we where going to find a cave to sleep in for tonight. We ended up stopping 15 km from where Geoff was mean't to come meet us and decided it would be best to find a place to camp seeing as its going to be dark soon and huge storm clouds were building upon the horizon. The Fox river bridge was ahead and we could see a cave. as we parked up our bikes we scouted the area. the first cave was pretty dull and damp. Hoping this is not the only cave we walked around till we meet a this old woman who we shared a conversation with for awhile. after that she pointed us in the direction of a cave. we went and scouted it to see if it was live able.. It was perfect!!

This cave was used by the Maori's hundreds of years ago when transporting green stone for trading. so we felt very privileged to experience this very cave. So we collected our things, as this would be our home from the next several days as the weather was coming in.    

Saxton Island

This was definitely one of the best places, if not the best place that we stayed! Every morning began getting up with the beautiful Nelson sun beating down upon the secluded little island and the sound of the water crashing with the tides. One of the best things was being able to hear the constant roaring of traffic yet being able to look at them and say "whats the rush guys, I'm sure there's room to slow down"

First of all I should probably mention that Saxton Island is a small island off the coast of Nelson, that switches between a fairly large land mass and very small one due to the 4 metre tides of the area.

It had 3 houses that were accessible to one other at low tide but at high tide all become there own small islands. The house we stayed on was owned by this fella called Bunj and he had set it up with solar power, tank water so it was pretty similar to our home on Great barrier Island.

Another one of the great features of the island was the outside shower! It was pretty epic to stand naked in a warm shower over looking the busy motorway into Nelson.

So anyway the first day was actually spend off the island, as we had volunteered to do tree planting up by cable bay, after four hours and we had planted 700 trees which I personally thought was a good effort for 6 people to do. However the project has a total of 22,000 plants that need to go in so hopefully some people start showing up for it!

After the tree planting we decided that the island needed to be restocked with food, now seeing as all three of us were pretty poor and the fact that Geoff refuses to eat any supermarket food unless he has to, we had to get the biggest bang for our buck! Therefore we drove up to Richmond where these three brothers sell fruit and veggie's at the lowest price around, all of it top quality organics at a price half of that in the supermarket. Below is a map of where it is and the amount of food we got for $25

After a huge veggie feed, the tide was low and we were all super keen to put Geoffs new net out so we did. The only problem was that it was 4 pm which meant we'd be getting up at 4 am to collect the gear and some fish. As per usual we all were having the best sleeps when morning came. However our desire for fish was greater so we headed out into the cold morning. The mixture of being dark and cold reeked havoc on our bare feet as the cold made them super sensitive to the sharp rocks they we couldn't see. Upon arriving at the net we were super excited to see that we had caught 2x Flounders 1x Barracuda (yes we ate it and it wasn't as bad as you'd think)  x2 Snapper and 1x Kawai, we folded the net and carried the gear back to the house. For some reason the fish look really small in this photo!!! I assure you though they were easily legal.

After posing we put the fish in a cool place as we were to tied to fillet them and would be eating all the food regardless of taste. Once the sun began to rise we were back up and filleted the fish.

We then spent a good portion of the day was spent helping Bunj clean his boat, collecting fire wood, playing golf and absorbing sun rays. I love island life! The following are random videos of us playing golf.

That night brewed up a huge batch of Kawakawa tea and sat around telling stories, reading stories and playing cards.

Reading stories of the Ananke

Reactions to my story telling

The next day Bunj brought up his yacht and beached it on the banks of the island and we helped him clean off all the growth upon it (note to dad we now have experience in doing this so we'll have no problem doing our yacht) it was sparkling at the end of the cleaning.

That night there was an island get together. It was funny because everyone was drinking a lot of alcohol except Geoff, Wolf and me, who had nothing because we were all over drinking and wanted to prove to the oldies that they could have a mean time without it. We fully showed them up in rowdiness and it was a pretty crazy night..... We did drink alot of Kawakawa tea though and I'm pretty sure it gets you going a bit even though I don't think its suppose to! Anyhow after everyone left we played a few games of competitive scum and when we finally got Bunj into scum we decided to head to bed.

The boy's with Bunj who has the scum mask

The next morning we dived down underneath the yacht and cleaned the side that it was beached upon, it was pretty fun as we hit the tide on the outgoing so had to attach ropes to keep us from being ripped away (remember there's a 4 meter tide) and when we would let go in seconds we would go from the front to the back!

We then spent most of the day fixing the roof, digging a huge hole and watching Geoff and Hohepa fill it with shit from the long-drop. Good work everyone!

Then later that evening we headed into town to do some busking, Geoff with on the tin flute, Wolf was playing harmonica and I was jamming the uke. It was so much fun playing and getting people involved. Unfortunately there was hardly anyone around! However we still made $5 and a dude told us our music was beautiful shot bro :) Hahah we probably could have made around $50 if we were jamming around 1 pm. The only bad thing was that we were dropped off in town and had to walk back back to the island which was 20 km away :( although half way we realised Bunj's house was pretty close and he ended up lending us his car (we would have walk the whole way but Geoff's ankle was owned and wolf and me had sore knee joints)

When we got to the boat we realised the tide was heading in which meant paddling was going to be hard in the little boat. However our chanting and singing got us through it! our lyrics when't

There's a fire in the dingy, there's a fire in the dingy, there's a fire in the dingy and it burns!!! (I think it was something like that)

The next few days consisted of more sun, netting fish, music playing, reading etc............
and then we left! Aiming for Punakaiki, where we aimed to meet up with Geoff and go bush.