By Hoki, every critter is afraid

The West Coast gives SHELLEY BRIDGEMAN a taste for the wilder things in life


Buried deep in the West Coast, that land of legend beyond the great divide of the Southern Alps, is Hokitika - where men are men and huhu grubs are afraid.

And so they should be. Very afraid. For there's a weekend every March when it's open season on grubs, worms, grasshoppers and all other creatures unlucky enough to dwell in this part of the world.

Nothing is sacred at the famed Wild Foods Festival. Roll up, roll up, horse-meat patties just $3 each. Or perhaps worm sushi, barbecued kangaroo or an ostrich kebab takes your fancy. If it moves, eat it.

This year, just to keep the gourmet inventions flowing, they've got a special section for "new foods" but the organisers acknowledge they have no idea what may turn up.

I was particularly intrigued by a tent selling chamois on sticks. What on earth, I wondered aloud, is a chamois?

My companion, let's call him Jack, because it's a Hokitika tradition that all men go by this handle, ("How's it going, Jack?" "Bloody beaut, Jack.") was sure that a chamois was some sort of deer.

So I asked the lady in the tent "Are the chamois sticks deer?" "No," she said "they're only $1.50." Much hilarity and several spelled-out-words later, it transpired that a chamois is a nimble mountain goat. Clearly Jack was talking through a hole in his head.

Come festival weekend, Hokitika's population explodes from 3400 to more than 20,000. That's roughly the equivalent of an extra six million people descending on Auckland at once.

There's not a spare bed to be found - nor patch of lawn that hasn't been covered by a tent. Guide halls are converted into dormitories, the beach is lined with campers - and at least one bed and breakfast has been known to slap on dubious extra festival charges.

Wandering through the town's centre, visitors are forgiven for not realising quite how close the beach is. Through the layout of the streets and the orientation of the buildings, Hoki (as it is affectionately known) seems to have resolutely turned its back on the ocean although the Tasman Sea is just a stone's throw away.

Local wisdom says you'd be mad to build too close to the water for fear of erosion.

It seems that sublime sea views haven't been particularly coveted either. Prime sections selling on an elevated subdivision in Brickfield Rd look are set to change that.

The gnarled driftwood littering the beach is supposed to be left where it is (in an effort to control erosion) but that doesn't stop revellers fuelling dozens of bonfires with them on festival night.

A bunch of us opted to settle down on hay-bales in the carpark behind the Southland Hotel and swig Good Bastard beer (brewed in Westport and slowly but surely gaining a following). There's no Good Bastard chardonnay, though, so the women toddle off to the bottle shop to sort that one out.

Talk soon turns to hay bales and how you can sit on them comfortably for hours on end. They're warm, soft and the perfect height. Perhaps hay bales could be the new chaise longue.

They're proud of their sunsets here. Locals will interrupt a yarn or a joke to send visitors down to stand among the flax bushes at the sand's edge to see the sun and sky do their nightly thing.

This is unpretentious territory where conveniences are called dunnies and blokes are jokers. And there's no greater compliment than to be called a good joker. Heck, the Mainland cheese adverts were even filmed near here.

It's not all back-slapping camaraderie though. The town has had its fair share of tragedy. Everyone remembers the shooting spree in the war years when seven people were killed by a rampaging gunman who went bush for a few days to elude the law.

Locals say that back then, even though much-loved family members were among the dead, the event was never spoken of. Such were the staunch ways of the folk out west.

Today, tourists keep the town humming along. Hokitika is the gateway to Franz Josef and Fox glaciers. The greenstone shops, sheepskins, gold panning and kiwi centre provide travellers with the requisite taste of culture.

Jack brought home 11kg of frozen whitebait from his last male-bonding trip to Westland. Repeatedly, he told me tales of the whitebaiters he saw fiercely guarding their patches down south on the Whataroa River and the nights he spent in the Whataroa Hilton, a basic hut jokingly named.

And for me now too, the whitebait represents more than tasty fritters. It's a freezer full of memories of beach bonfires, huhu grubs on toothpicks, starry black skies, the smoky purple backdrop of the alps - and the people, those enduring Jacks and Jills, who preserve the spirit of the coast.

* For more information contact Westland District Council's events department, phone (03) 755 8321, email events@westlanddc.govt.nz or look on the web at www.wildfoods.co.nz