Hokitika Base Camp – Glenda & Merv Version 

20th – 23rd MARCH 2025

This was planned as a PTC base camp with Graeme Nicholas leader. Club response was not good with the trip eventually being cancelled but Glenda and I were already organised to go and the forecast was still good; so, we did, and here is our “club” trip report.

Hokitika in the past has been an ‘entry point’ for trips in the foothills or ranges inland of there, sometimes staying on the Friday night in the old camping ground down toward the dairy company. There were a number of long weekend base camps driving over on the Friday night and staying in the big school lodge at the south end of Lake Kaniere. They may have included day trips to Mt Tuhua or the Mt Brown track before the new Mt Brown hut was there. So, for staying in Hokitika itself for a base camp now, those trips were still local options. But so were easy-ish trips such as in the historic Goldsborough area north of Hokitika. In addition, the building of the Wilderness Trail greatly expanded biking options.

So, for this trip Glenda and I booked a unit in the six-year-old upmarket Hokitika Kiwi H.P. Close in to town with easy biking to the centre of town. We left home late morning and stopped in the Sheffield Domain for lunch where the marquees for the Malvern A & P show over the weekend were already up. Drove on in brilliant blue-sky weather and little wind to Hoki and our spacious camping ground.

We made Friday our primary biking day, to Lake Kaniere. We could access the Wilderness Trail up on the river stop bank down at the other end of our street. The Trail is sometimes on road but then often along the historic water race system from the lake down to the power station in Kaniere. The latter part uphill picked up the Water Race Walkway which being narrow needed care to bike. The trail came out at The Landing car park by the lake which is also the inlet for the water race. There we talked to a couple with an impressive looking off road pop top trailer behind their Land Rover. He admitted to not yet having really tested it off road but the intention was there. It looked like a military vehicle.

Returning downhill we biked in to town and went out on the sea front promenade behind the shops for a look. Interested to see the Hoki fire engine and full crew there beside the public loo. And then there was a big cheer as one of the crew managed to open the loo door and a grateful young woman emerged. Cell phones are sometimes very handy.