This morning we left the whales behind and went road-tripping west. Having done lots of research on which mountain pass road to choose and what the winter weather was doing, we decided on Lewis Pass – the closest option and, according to all sources, open to drivers.

At first we were greeted with these incredible views…

… but we hit our first snag of the day when we turned down the road towards Lewis Pass to find a massive neon sign indicating that the road was, in fact, closed Monday to Wednesday. It’s Tuesday. We think it might be for maintenance work but that’s a guess as nothing else was on the sign.

Never mind, we thought, we’ll just head a bit further south and take Arthur’s Pass instead. This we did, and all was going well until we hit the rain. Then our views looked more like this…

We stopped at one “viewing spot” but only Martin was brave enough to head out of the car…

Nevertheless, we kept going and made it to Hokitika right on time (2pm) to check in at our backpackers.

Here comes the next snag… our backpackers doesn’t exist. In fact, it permanently closed YEARS AGO. This is a backpackers that is still available to book on “Booking.com” – one that we made a booking with months ago, paid for, and received confirmation emails for etc.

Kate to the kids: “don’t worry kids, this is all part of the adventure”

Kate’s inner monologue: “beeeeeeep”

Thankfully, it’s winter season and so there were other places available to book for the night. Once we’d found somewhere and got our bearings we headed to The National Kiwi Centre to hopefully catch a glimpse of this national icon (our first since we arrived).

We also all enjoyed a bit of “crawly catching”, where you can catch and release crayfish.

We did see two beautiful kiwis being fed while we were there, but you aren’t allowed to take photos because it might disturb them.

After all the aquatic and animal fun, we headed out in the rain again to see what there was to see in the town. We found a glass blowing shop where you could watch men making different glass ornaments, and then had a scrummy Thai meal for dinner. Back to the motel for us and an early night before we go glacier hunting tomorrow!