We went to Hokitika on the West Coast of the South Island for the Wildfoods Festival. This was year 21 and people come from all over, dressed in costumes like Halloween. There are booths offering an assortment of edible substances ranging from homemade licorice to grubs pulled from the bark of dying trees. I ate mountain oysters… ack! and Mel ate sand flies because he thought he was getting them back for eating him. We also tried worm truffles from this wonderful menu.
Wildfoods Festival in Hokitika, New Zealand
This was Abel Tasman National Park which we did a hike or “tramp” thru. The lagoon below was probably the furthest north of any privately held land. Chunks of land were granted decades ago for logging and farming and they were going to rampage this beautiful land like most of New Zealand, but for some reason that’s beyond my knowledge, they turned the area into a gorgeous national park but offered the land to the original claimants for habitation only. I’da taken it!
Abel Tasman National Park, New Zealand
This was awesome. We did a trek from Tyrrant Bay to Anchorage Bay over an estuary during low tide which was incredible unto itself. But, when we got to Anchorage Bay, instead of heading to where our water taxi was to meet us, we went up the beach into this awesome alcove where we ran into a blue penguin in the wild. It was so cool to get up close to one of these adorable creatures and photograph him/her.
Blue Penguin
Tags: new zealand
