ABEL TASMAN/WEST COAST
We have been travelling on the South Island for the last 10 days, living in our van, Bertie, and seeing as much as we can see. Our access to internet has been few and far between, and can be quite costly but we still want to keep up with the blog. We will try our best over the next 6 weeks as we travel to keep it up to date. (Can't believe we come home in only 6 weeks!)
So... here are the highlights from the last few days...
November 5th
We woke up to much nicer weather than the day before and were able to go out on the sea with our kayak. We left at 8:30am and spent the whole day paddling around the beautiful Abel Tasman National Park.
We saw lots of seals hanging out sunbathing on the rocks.
And lots of birds. Including blue penguins (they were too quick to get a picture of though)
Some of the many beautiful beaches to stop at along the way.
Stopped for lunch at Sandfly Bay Beach (luckily the sandflies weren't actually that bad).
We found some mussels and figured they would go great with our pasta dinner.
We collected 2 dozen of them. Yum!
This was Pinnacle Island, a seal colony. We saw a few more seals hanging out here. They say that if you just hang out in your kayak about 25m away from the island, a seal may come right up to you and jump on your kayak. We tried... but we must not have looked friendly enough.
By mid-afternoon we made it to Ancourage Bay, which is where the hut we were sleeping at that night was. We figure in total (without counting the beach stops we made) we kayaked for about 4 and a half hours. We beached our kayak and explored the beach.
At one end of the beach there were a bunch of little sea caves to explore. So... of course, we explored them
And chilled out on a log, watching the many people along the beach, and enjoying the sounds of the sea.
Later that night we cooked up our pasta and mussels for dinner. The mussels were pretty small, but were so fresh and delicious.November 6th
The next morning we woke up early and made our way back to Marahau, about a 2 and a half hours more of kayaking. There was a thin layer of cloud which made for some beautiful pictures, but we did not appreciate that it blocked out the sun and our hands were freezing the whole way back.
We survived our overnight kayak trip! No capsizing or serious incident occurred. It's lucky we didn't get sent out the day before with the bad weather because we heard that quite a few people who were out there actually capsized. Eeeekk!
After a hot shower back at the kayak rental base, we were back on the road, heading for the west coast.
The sun came out as we were driving along the Motueka Valley Road and we had our first look at New Zealand's mountains.
While driving through the Bullers Gorge, we stopped at New Zealand's longest swingbridge (120m).
No Biggie! We are experts with these now.
Especially since this one actually had a sturdy bottom to it.
We drove through Westport and made sure to fill up with gas and get groceries because we were told the drive down the west coast is very remote. After filling our cooler, we drove just south of Westport where we found a spot on the side of the highway to camp for the night.
When you live in a van, you have to be very resourceful, like using the top of Bertie to take out your contacts.
We realized that since we had always prepared meals before leaving Hamilton every weekend, this was our first night that we actually cooked a meal from scratch.
Pork Korma Curry with Naan Bread. (We would have liked to let the pork simmer a little longer, but... we aren't exactly going for 'gourmet' here).
November 7th
The next morning we went for a hike called Fox River Caves. There was just a couple sentences about the hike in our Lonely Planet book, and it said there were some caves to explore at the end. Enough said... we are doing it.
The track then climbed steeply through a bunch of really slippery rocks and over a couple small waterfalls.
Huge cliff face opposite the mouth of the cave.
Headlamps on and ready to go!
Hiking into the cave.
We were surprised that it was an actual cave that you could go way back into on your own to explore. We walked/climbed through it for about 200m.
It was completely dark other than the little bit of light from our headlamps.
After about 40 minutes of exploring, we hiked back out of the cave.
When we got back to the river crossing, we met up with the few people we saw along the track. They were behind us on our way up to the caves, and obviously ahead of us on the way down. They didn't bring any flashlights with them, so they couldn't go inside the cave like we had. We tried not to gloat at how amazing it was.
We stopped at Punakaiki where there are some amazing Pancake Rocks. We weren't there at high tide, where many of these crevises turn into giant blow holes. But the rock formations were quite amazing.
Huge Archway
Pancake Rocks
After a drive through Greymouth, we continued along and stopped for the night just south of Hokatika at a little camping area on Lake Mahinapua. We made another delicious meal from scratch (fish and potato/veggie salad)
November 8th
We woke up to a very grey, rainy morning. We made our way to Franz Josef town, where we stopped in at the i-site and learned that the rain was predicted to clear later in the day. We decided to hang out a bit in the town, having some lunch, do some Christmas shopping, and wait to see if they were right before heading up to the glacier.
By about noon, the rain was looking like it was clearning and we headed up to see the Franz Josef glacier. It was about an hour hike to the face of it. It was quite spectacular to see.
We did get a short period of time with blue sky and sunshine, but the rain and cloud were making their way back as we were heading out.
One of the many waterfalls along the way to the glacier
We drove further south making our way south east through Haast Pass. Such a beautiful drive through the rugged mountains.
We stopped at Pleasant Flat Campground for the night where we were attacked by sandflies. After making and eating a quick dinner, we spent the rest of the night hanging out in Bertie.
November 9th
We woke up this morning and drove to Wanaka, where we are spending the day today. We have been on the go for so many days, we decided to use today as a little bit of a down day. Sit in a nice little cafe with some free wifi and catch up on the old internet.
We did go to a crazy Puzzleworld this morning, which was pretty cool. Lots of interesting puzzles, holograms, and a maze.
We are planning on spending the rest of the day here in Wanaka, then heading to Queenstown tomorrow to meet Stew and Casey (Scott's brother and his partner) who are flying in tomorrow afternoon. We are so excited to see and hang out with them during their time here in New Zealand.
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