Friday, August 22, 2014

Whiting Christmas: Part 6 - Hokitika, Sunsets and Bon Voyage

Time for the final installment from our Christmas vacation.  We traveled down the west coast after pancake rocks and spent Christmas night in Hokitika.  They had a great Christmas day feast at the hotel we were staying at, a giant fancy buffet of turkey, fish, roast, and all the trimmings.  It was delicious and a nice way to spend the evening.


The sun started to depart and the sky started changing colors.  This was the view from our balcony.


Down towards the beach they had constructed a large stone levee along the beach to help break the ocean waves and protect the town.


There were a few other beach combers enjoying the view as well.   Driftwood covered a lot of the sand.


One last selfie for the trip.  Vacation's almost over...


Looking back at the hotel, the sky was changing in all directions.


The waves were still strong.  The sounds of the ocean and the steady wind made it a nice night.


The colors had just about faded and we thought it was about over, but we were wrong...


The beach was at a shallow angle so the water would spread over a large area before retreating to the sea.


Another short video to show you what the night was like...


The sun was long gone, but the reds and pinks started to pop into the sky...


Such a perfect, peaceful night...


Not much else to say...


Another one...


And another one...


Just about done now, the sand starting to look black...


We were spending all our time looking up... glancing down was like a river bed with smoothed stones deposited all along in the sand...


One last view...  Drift wood all down the beach, and a few stragglers still enjoying the sunset.  It was a pretty awesome night, and the last one of our week long journey around the island.


All that was left was the long journey home.  We straddled the west coast with Southern Alps just inland to us.  This was a picture before we went through Hasst Pass, one of only three passes that goes through the mountains.


We didn't take many pictures in the mountains that day, because we had a 9 hour drive to get back home to start work the next day.  But we did get this one as we came out the other side approaching Wanaka.  It was such a great trip.  Thanks for following along!  Cole has recently just taken several trips up to the Haast Pass region and was out on the glaciers.  Rebecca and I will be heading up there next weekend actually, so you will see what it is like through there soon enough!

It was great trip, over too quick...  Next up on the "catch up blogging" the adventures with our Moms and my brother who traveled down in our Fall.


No comments:

Post a Comment