Itchy and Scratchy

The Marmite treatment does not work and that's for sure. I have been so itchy for the past couple of days. Copious quantities of anti-itch cream have been rubbed into my skin, but the bugs do leave their traces. I wake in the middle of the night with terrible itching where there was no itching when I went to sleep. And it seems to go on and on. I have now purchased new supplies of insect repellent but I have to say that New Zealand bugs are made of stern stuff. In spite of liberal skin smearing, they still land on me in spite of the fact that my skin must resemble a toxic desert.

I am now in Franz Josef, home to a huge glacier - well, less huge now that it is being assaulted by global warming. Virtually every hotel room was booked and I'm staying in a kind of Butlins just outside the little town. It's okay but not the greatest accommodation I have ever known.

On the way here from Hokitika, I called in at a very small community called Okarito. It used to be a busy place but as with all towns on the West Coast was eclipsed as gold mining in this region started to decline. It boasts the oldest building on the entire West Coast. It started as a club and then became Donovan's General Store, run by a couple who only retired in their eighties. Old man Donovan contributed greatly to the development of the West Coast. Apparently he was a member of the Council and never missed a meeting - quite a feat, considering that the Council met in Hokitika, some 90 miles north and he used to go there on horseback. Now Okarito is very quiet, home to quite a few artists, including Keri Hume, who wrote the Booker Prize winning "The Bone People". It is also home to one of the strangest motorhomes I have ever seen - an ancient Bedford lorry with what looks like a small house built on its chassis.

Tomorrow I join a guided walk up the Fox glacier.