Hokitika

A few years ago I read, and thoroughly enjoyed, a book called The Colour by Rose Tremain, which is about the gold rush in New Zealand. Hokitika is one of the main settings in the book and I had been looking forward to visiting the town for a long time.

When gold was discovered in the Hokitika River in 1860, thousands of hopeful prospectors arrived in this wild and remote location, and a busy, chaotic town sprung up from nowhere. Ramshackle hotels, banks and, most importantly, pubs, were built in a matter of weeks to support the new community and it was a scene of both great excitement and terrible disappointment until the gold ran out in the early 20th Century.

Nowadays, Hokitika is a strangely lonely sort of a place - or at least it is on a rainy Saturday afternoon when all the shops are already closed! The streets are amazingly wide and there's a definite air of the Wild West about it.

In the evening, however, the rain stopped and we were treated to a stunning sunset down on the beach. Just watch out for those sand flies!

We also found time to visit nearby Hokitita Gorge. It's a beautifully peaceful spot, with turquoise water that is turned milky from glacial flour - suspended rock particles come down from the Southern Alps. The landscape around there is really dramatic with rugged snow-capped mountains jutting out of the plains. It's a beautiful place with a lot of fascinating history.

Rachel x