West Coast

The day after Abel Tasman was a pretty average day driving down The West Coast. Lots of windy roads, which is no fun for my carsick self. 

The good thing is that even long rides through New Zealand are not boring. There are always things to see and the scenery is constantly changing. 

One stop we made along the way was a seal colony. While not nearly as many seals as at Abel Tasman, it was still a pretty place. 

 

That evening we arrived at our destination, Westport. Like a lot of the NZ towns I've seen, Wesport was nothing to write home about. In fact,  if I forgot I was in New Zealand (and forgot that the next beautiful thing was no more than a short drive away), I might have been both disappointed and frightened by this town. It's was like an old western village--dilapitadeted buildings hugging one lonely Main Street. We stayed at an okay hostel. What made it great was the backyard where most people spent the evening making/eating dinner, relaxing, and making future trip plans. 

The next day was an early morning. We had a beautiful drive down the coastline.    The rocky coast really reminded me of California. I loved it. Our first stop was Pancake Rocks. Through a layering-weathering process, over the years, the limestone has formed into what looks like piles of thick pancakes. 

There was a nice little walk around the rocks and they were pretty fascinating to observe.

Later that day we spent the afternoon in Greymouth. We were waiting on a new passenger to come from Christchurch to Greymouth via train. It's called the Tranz Alpine Railway and it traverses NZs Southern Alps. It sounds like and amazing trip and has often been voted one of the worlds great train journeys. I wish it would have fit in my plans to ride on it. 

From there we headed to our destination of Franz Josef- a two day stay. The hostel we stayed in was not very nice and the weather was pretty gross (cloudy, foggy, rainy). My friend, Wieke, and I tried to be creative and bought food to make quiche. After mixing everything we realized there was no oven. After some deliberation, our quiche turned into scrambled eggs. Despite the disappointing accommodations, kitchen facilities, and weather, we still had a fun night hanging out with everyone from the bus. 

One of the main attractions at Franz Is the helicopter ride/ glacier hike. It looks amazing (I had some friends go earlier in the week), but it was quite expensive and our weather was so foggy, that I'm glad I didn't go. 

Instead I went on a hike with Wieke and our Finnish friend Eeva. We attempted a trail that would get us quite close to the glacier. After a lot of walking and scrambling, the rain just kept coming down harder and our hopes of seeing any views were fading fast. We ended up hiking quite far, we just didn't see much. It was still a lot of fun. 

We found the warning signs for the hike to be a little much.

Hiking in NZ I've found they have a lot of Indiana Jones swinging bridges on trails. On this particular hike, we crossed the  longest swinging bridge I've ever seen. It was just recently constructed (which did give me more comfort) and had to have been 150 meters long? And about 1 foot wide (I know I'm combining measurement units :) The scary part was how narrow the bride was. One wrong step and you would be a goner. 

I was a lot more nervous than I thought I would be. Mid way across I almost froze. With some coaching from my friends, I made it. It was quite the thrill. (Who needs to pay big money for adventure sports in NZ when you can find it for free on swinging bridges?)

That night after drying out and warming up we had a relaxing evening. 

The next day was one of the best days (driving wise). While a long day, it was full of spectacular and varied scenery. We started by crossing over the mountain from Franz Josef to another glacier, Fox Glacier. From here we hiked around a lake, Lake Matheson, a deep lake which when the lighting is right, provides almost perfect reflections of the mountain ranges in the distance. 

After the walk we headed up over another mountain that had  California-esque ocean views.

From there we headed into Mt. Aspiring National Park, the second largest park in NZ. The road we were on was called Haast Pass and it is one of the 3 passes (via car) to pass the Southern Alps. The drive was extra incredible because it started to rain. When it rains, waterfalls just shoot up and out of no where. Looking around it was waterfall after waterfall down the cliffs. It was quite spectacular. This was a little

too difficult to capture by camera. 

We stopped at one waterfall that is always there, regardless of the rain level. 

From there we took a walk to the "blue pools" As you can see, they were more emerald than blue, but still pretty. 

After we crossed over Haast Pass, we arrived at Lake Wanaka. We meandered down the road following the beautiful lake. It was amazing how just minutes ago we were in the rainy Pass and now it was sunny and beautiful. What a day of varied landscapes-- from glaciers to oceans to sun and rain, lakes to rivers, waterfalls to mountains, we just about saw it all. 

Wanaka was quite beautiful, and the weather that evening made it the more special. I went down to the water to grab some drinks with friends.

The next morning we hiked up Mount Iron. While not an overly long hike, it was fairly steep, and the views from the top were amazing. 360 degree views of the mountains and lakes. 

As I decided to stay in Wanaka for 3 days, I switched hostels. That afternoon a storm came in, so a group of us just sat in the hostel living room (that had great mountain views) and chatted and wifi-ed. That night we made dinner and dessert, and played some hilarious games. 

The next day I intended to rent a bike and bike around a part of the lake. Sadly, the weather didn't quite cooperate as it was quite foggy and overcast. Instead, I opted to check out the local cinema. I heard it was a really cool place, and it sure was. The theater seats were made up of old couches, airline seats, car seats, dentist chairs, and other odd things. They also have a great cafe serving local drinks and goodies, and at intermission they serve warm cookies. Someone in the US needs to start a theater like this!! I've never been so comfortable (and no, I surprisingly didn't fall asleep;) I went to see The Theory of Everything, which I liked. 

By the time the movie ended, the weather had cleared off more and I went for a long walk by the lake. 

From Wanaka it is on to Queenstown!