I’m sorry it’s been a few days since I updated last, but the computer at my last hostel was so slow that every time I tried to resize a picture, it froze for a few minutes…leading to lots of frustration and wasted internet time, so I didn’t get a chance to actually update. Anyway, I’ve been pretty busy since I wrote in Punakaiki. Just after I updated, my friend from the hostel and I went back up to the Pancake Rocks to see them at high tide (and without rain), since the blowholes there are the best when the water is right up. All three of the big blowholes were spitting out loads of spray, enthralling the many tourists standing around with cameras hoping to capture it. We weren’t really game for waiting around at the rocks for sunset, so we ended up going back to the hostel and sitting on the beach to watch the sun set into the ocean. Everyone else in Punakaiki was there as well!

The next day I headed down to Hokitika, another town with a fun name on the west coast (for the curious, the most-used pronunciation is hokey-tick-uh). I decided to stay in Birdsong, a wonderful little hostel about 2km outside the town itself (which isn’t that big in the first place). Every room in the hostel was named after a different native NZ bird, and there were giant paintings of kiwis and woodpigeons (my room name) on the wall. I ran into quite a few people that I’d already met and talked to in other hostels; I’m sure I’ll meet them again along the way, since everyone heads in generally the same direction.

So to get to the title of this post, I carved my own greenstone at a carving studio called Bonz ‘n’ Stonz yesterday. Two of the girls in my room–Johanna and Anne from Germany–also went, so Johanna drove us all into town around 9. The first step of the process was choosing our design. We all pored over books for about 1/2 an hour before deciding on our designs, which we then had to draw. I used a design that was partly out of the book, partly of my own design. As the picture to the right shows, it was a combination of a triple twist, a fish hook, and a whale tail–all important symbols to the Maori. Their meanings are as follows:

Triple twist: friendship and loyalty for life
Fish hook (hei matau): prosperity, strength, determination, good health, and safe journey over water
Whale tail: Protection, strength but sensitivity

Steve, the carver that owns Bonz ‘n’ Stonz, was great. He helped us through all of the different steps necessary to create a greenstone carving. First, we cut out our designs and then traced them on the jade. Steve then had to begin the carving by getting rid of a lot of the excess greenstone; then we ground off the greenstone outside our traced designs and began to round off edges. After a bit of sanding and an hour and a half lunch break, the people that were carving bone were done. One of the guys was amazing and made a perfect whale tail with barely any help from Steve! The worst part of the bone carving was the smell–it reminded me of getting fillings. Yuck. After lunch it was only the three of us doing jade left. We got to bore holes in the stone and use smaller tools to do more detailed work. All of us had variations of whale tails in our designs, which require a great deal of precision, so we kept Steve busy! He definitely took care of my tiny whale tail, which I was ready to chop off since I had butchered it and thought it had no chance of recovering. Today someone saw the necklace and recognized the whale tail straight away, so he did well!

After all of the carving/grinding/precision work was done, it was time to polish and buff. We sanded the greenstone with five grades of sandpaper until they were shining just like jade you see in the shops (before, the jade only shone when it was wet; once it dried, it became a powdery green). Then we dipped them in oil, put them on a cord, and were done! It was a long, arduous process–I don’t know how Steve does it every day, because we were absolutely worn out after being in the studio from 9am-5.30pm. It was well worth it though, and I know that my necklace is a) pure NZ greenstone from the greenstone capital of NZ and b) totally unique because I made it myself from my own design! Plus, we paid $90 for the tutoring, use of the studio, and the necklace; that’s much less than a pendant the size of mine would market for normally. Then, to finish the evening, we all had a glass of wine and watched the sunset from our hostel–and we saw the flash of emerald green as the sun sunk into the horizon. Fitting, since that’s the color we’d been seeing all day.

This morning, we woke up to see that the sky was blue and the clouds were distant–not something that often happens on the West Coast of the Southern Alps. We all seized the opportunity and jumped into Johanna’s car for a short ride to Hokitika Gorge. This gorge was unlike the previous ones I’ve seen on the west coast in that the water was a brilliant bluey-turquoise color. It’s the brightest water I’ve ever seen that hasn’t been dyed; it was even bluer than the water in the Abel Tasman, which is saying a lot. There’s a swingbridge across the water, and you’re allowed to climb all you want on the rocks just on the other side. We did so, trying to get the perfect angle on the brilliant water (and the waterfall running into it), when Anne noticed that there was greenstone in amongst the rocks. We then spent a good 15 minutes running our fingers through the tiny pebbles trying to find our own little chunks of jade (not that we hadn’t made our own pendants the day before or anything ) I think the only reason we left was because the bloody sandflies started eating us alive.

From there, we went to Lake Kaniere, another local jewel. We had a long drive around the lake before we found Dorothy Falls, a huge waterfall barely feet off of the main road. We also did a 30-minute round trip walk called the Canoe Cove Walk–regardless of the fact that we found no canoes or coves. We did, however, find the craziest mushrooms I’ve ever seen. All along the path, there were bright blue, deep red, and orange/yellow mushrooms, nestled on top of logs or underneath a few dead leaves. We figured the mushrooms must have been so blue because of the water!

After that, it was a rush back into town so I could do some grocery shopping and catch the bus to where I am now–Fox Glacier. Cristina and Megan will appreciate the fact that it was drizzling when I arrived and the clouds were over the mountains (which is exactly how it was when we arrived here a bit more than three years ago). That’s why I’m in the internet cafe and I’m about to bombard you with an absurd number of photo links–because it’s raining, and Fox Glacier only has one street so therefore not much to do (unless you like riding motorcycles, which apparently a lot of people here today do–I’ve heard at least 20 drive past since I’ve been in here!). The forecast for tomorrow and the next day is good, though, so fingers crossed!

Anyway, below are links to the photos I’ve promised you.
Murchison: Shots from around Murchison and on the Skyline Track above the town.
Rafting the Buller River: Updated to include shots that White Water Action took from the banks.
Punakaiki: Pictures of the Pancake Rocks and the Blowholes, sunsets on the beach, and from my 3 hour walk through Paparoa National Park.
Hokitika: An incomplete gallery; currently contains all the shots I got of greenstone carving along with a few from Hokitika Gorge & Lake Kaniere.