Has anyone ever stayed at 252 Beachside Motels and Holiday Park
(Formerly - Black Sands Motor Lodge)
in Hokitika. We were thining of staying there or the Shining Star. It would just be for a night. It sounds kinda neat to be so close to the sea. We will be traveling with our seven month old and the 252 Beachside offered us a one bedroom for the price of a studio which would give us the ability to hang out after the baby goes down. That might be nice - but alone is not a reason to stay somewhere. What may be a reason is they say they have a spa pool (a hot tub?) which might be nice after hiking on Fox Glacier earlier that day!
Any evening activity suggestions for Hokitika? We fly out the following day, so won't get too much daylight time there.
Thanks in advance!
Carolyne

I don't recall much about Hokitika except that all the tour busses stop there at the many, many jade stores. It's a pretty small town. We just went through and stopped for lunch (and, yes, jade) at Cafe de Paris, oft mentioned here. It's kind of a sandwich/soup place as I recall, very good.
The beach was strewn with flotsam from a very violent Tasman Sea. If the weather is good, you might like a stroll on the beach. When we were there it was quite stormy, so no beach.
There seemed to be several restaurants. Also, there is a famous festival annually, I believe it is the road kill food festival, with all kinds of outrageous things to eat. Didn't see that, but tells you a little about the psyche of those that live there-abouts. Very "frontier."
A quaint little town.

Road kill, yum...

Only stayed in Hoki once, mostly because it was a convenient place to overnight. There's an interesting wool store there and a few good restaurants, like the one Bill mentioned, but not much else unless you're into jade.

I think there are some walks in the area, but sounds like you won't have much time for that.

I believe there is a glow worm dell in Hokitika.

We stayed in a deluxe beachfront chalet in Shining Star, which cost us NZ $129 last October. These were spacious, clean and very well equipped. The chalets were about half an hours walk from the centre of town, shops, etc. I can't say Hokitika was our favourite place, though the wild, driftwood strewn beach was quite interesting for a short stroll.

Yes we stayed there in 2002 and were not too impressed. I am sure you can find better. It didn't help the next door neighbours came in at around 1 am, having been to a wedding and kept us awake, talking and loud music(through the thin walls) for most of the night. It reminded us of pictures you see of 'Butlins' in the 60's.