The West Coast

We have three nights here in the cabin at Te Mika, just north of Punakaiki – or Punangairi – surrounded by native bush, nīkau dominant, tucked in between pounding West Coast and characterful Paparoa bluffs.

• Trumans Track (3.9km, 116m)

• Pancake Rocks (3km)

• Pororari-Punakaiki Loop (17.3km, 247m)

• Punakaiki Cavern (1.2km, 19m)

• Pororari Lagoon (3.6km, 74m)

• Port Charleston (3.1km, 44m)

We arrived late afternoon, paused on the driveway to the cabin to let weka woodhen clear the road, unpacked, and walked from the cabin down Truman Track through bush to the spectacular coastline. Overhanging cliffs, rockpools, coves, a cavern, a waterfall, golden sand, smooth stones, gnarled driftwood.

Tarā | white-fronted tern, kāruhiruhi | pied cormorant, tōrea | variable oystercatchers, tūī | parsonbird, and tarāpunga | red-billed gulls. We fossick, marvel, enjoy watching the sun lower over the horizon, then head back as the namu sandflies settle in.

I head back out after dinner, hoping to catch tāiko | Westland petrel rafting up around dusk. I head to Punakaiki Rocks in golden hour, watching the sun slip below the horizon, purpling and oranging the limestone pancakes. I snap tarā fishing, preening, frolicking – and just as the sun has set, tāiko. It’s a long way off, much too technical and distant for my photography skills – but it’s tāiko, what a treat. This is a special place.

We wake to the dawn chorus. Korimako | bellbird, thrush, manu pango | blackbird, tauhou | waxeye, paharani | chaffinch, riroriro | grey warbler, and tūī. We finish each day in the same fashion – with an evening chorus reprisal with the same performers. Sensational!

Not long after sunrise on day one we hear something else – and watch through the window as weka and chicks, grunting, scurry under and past the cabin. Over the next few days we get to know our weka co-habitants shrill, kiwi-like whistle; pukeko-like squawk; grunting; and clacking. They’ve clearly been at the bromeliad on the front door step – tear marks and missing chunks are increasingly evident over our stay. They’re friendly, approaching within a foot or two of an offered hand. And they’re inquisitive, pecking our hiking poles as we loop Pororari-Punangairi. 

Day one we loop Pororari-Punangairi. We park at the visitors’ centre and head clockwise down to Punangairi beach, past pounding surf and nīkau-lined sheer limestone cliffs dotted with brilliant red pōhutukawa and shrouded by cookfire smoke. We follow our nose toward the lagoon, cutting back through the campground and across the road to the Pororari carpark, marking one way into or out of the Paparoa Track. 

Kererū and tūī flit amongst the kawakawa and harakeke | flax flower. We turn out of the carpark onto the walk, stop to photograph wild goat grazing beside us, then look up and marvel at the jurassic cliffs lining the Pororari River. The river is a golden tannin-filled yellow brown, with limestone rocks resembling fossilised sharks and Corinthian columns. It’s a busy track of hikers, pack rafters, day walkers, track runners, bikers, and kayakers. We stop, sure we’ve heard toutouwai, but can’t sight our little forest friend. We heed the signs reminding us that this karst landscape of soluble limestone hides tomo and grike (fissures or cracks caused by weathering) and clint (the flat blocks of rock between grikes) and doline (closed, bowl-shaped sinkholes). 

We make the turn-off and push a little further on, crossing the swing bridge and eating lunch at the start of the Cave Creek track. Sandwiches, venison, lactose-free cheese, aioli, gherkin. We walk back over the swing bridge, following the Punangairi shared track, reluctantly avoiding the 1867 original track. We pause with miromiro tomtit and weka. We descend amongst the nīkau and white rata to the river. I swim, floating down the Punangairi River to the swing bridge. It’s a perfect cool-down. We eat the rest of our sandwiches, cross the bridge, walk out the gravel road, and follow the freshly cut switchback through to the visitor’s centre, pausing to watch a juvenile weka soaking in a stream – the light catching the droplets of water in a rainbow prism. We’re back at the car, a little too hot and exhausted, but plenty delighted.

Day two I head out on a solo mission to explore and possibly circumnavigate Pororari Lagoon. The looming clouds settle into rain. I pass through the nīkau forest, down a gravel access road, and turn right, following a loose path along the grasses and sand edge of the Pororari Lagoon. It’s low tide. A posse of angry tarāpunga drive me on. I wade, cross sandstone protrusions, and reach the impassable maw of Bullock Creek. It’s terrifying to look upon – deep black, a sheer drop almost obscured by the lagoon water I’m wading through.

I turn back, wade across the lagoon to my waist, surprise a school of yellow-eye, and follow the grass edge fringing the high tide line. I hear pohowera | banded dotterel – pause, and sure enough, a father and several chicks are foraging amongst the bone-dry driftwood in this back corner of the lagoon. I sit with them for some time, until the pestering namu become intolerable. I follow the nooked and niched headland to the Boot, pass to the sheltered cove on the far side, and follow the shore, wading in the surf. I’ve had my eye on a colony of tarā mid beach and follow tarā flying overhead toward the colony. I photograph a tītī | muttonbird, recently deceased. And then I am mid colony. Fishing. Chasing. Preening. Bathing. Swooping. Landing. 

Day three we attempt the red sands of Woodpecker Bay (aborted due to high tide); explore the Punakaiki Caverns (no bird life but remarkable stalactites, stalagmites, fissures, quartz veins, stone slabs, and narrow passageways); visit the Rocks again at full tide where blowhole, surge pool, and ‘sudden sound’ come alive; and head up to the Punakaiki lookout (nice ngāhere | forest, not recommended for the view).

We break the drive north up with stops at Belfast Creek with tarā and tarāpunga, Whisky Creek hoping for lake birds but seeing only submerged beech forest, and Constant and Joyce Bays at Port Charleston – with loads of tūī, tōrea, kawaupaka | little pied shag, tarā, tarāpunga, mica, pounamu greenstone, carnelian, and quartz. These last two bays are a fabulous stop-over walk and swim. 

Highly recommended. Port Charleston, Punakaiki | Punangairi, and the West Coast.