Long Drive to Picton

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When we left Te Anau the morning after we finished our hike, it was raining, and it had been raining pretty continuously for about 24 hours I’d say. As we drove, though, it turned first to sleet and then quickly to snow. Keep in mind that this was in their early summer and we were at about 1000 feet above sea level. This is not how we expected New Zealand to be, but we loved the surprise. That day we made our marathon drive up the west coast of the south island to Greymouth. This is about a 13 hour drive on a good day. But of course we had weather, and we also had to stop a lot to look at stuff. We stopped at the beautiful rugged beaches along the west coast, we stopped at both the fox and franz-joseph glaciers (though sadly we didn’t get to hike on them due to our rush), we stopped at a little town along the way to eat some really good pasta and lamb and drink some really really good beer. Since rural New Zealand seems to shut down and go to bed, ohhh around nightfall, our after-dark drive became increasingly creepy with the only other vehicles on the road being these huge, and I mean huge shipping and logging trucks. None of the towns we passed had any lights on. It was starting to seem like we’d really never get to Greymouth and we were getting very tired. But finally just before midnight, we pulled up at the Ashley Motel, recommended to us by one of the couples we’d shared a suite with in Te Anau. Boy were we lucky they had told us about this place, though by this time we would have stopped anywhere that looked remotely open. Ashley was open and they had one room left. We took it even at the outrageous price they wanted for it. The staff was freaking hilarious too. They were changing over from the day / evening crew - professional looking, well dressed, well coiffed, well spoken etc. - to the night crew which consisted of a middle aged woman in a kitty-cat sweater and a tight poodle perm going on and on to us about the rain (which was still pouring down like noah’s flood) and how her neighbors probably thought she was crazy because she washed her sheets in the rainy season and they take forever to dry (you don’t say) but during the dry season there’s not enough water to wash the sheets… umm… I’m not sure if that’s why the neighbors thought she was crazy but it might be on the list. That and only washing your sheets once a year. It was pretty damn funny.

Anyway so we slept really well in Greymouth and left again early the next day for Picton, which is the ferry point from which you leave for Wellington on the north island. Picton was not much to write about and we didn’t do a whole lot there, just relaxed in the great backpacker we found, made some dinner, used the web and generally unwound from all our driving. We left the next morning for the North Island at about 5:15am.

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Photos

Snow on the Drive
This is taken near Te Anau

One of Many Amazing Lakes on the Way
not sure what this one was called.

Masa the Penguin
because you couldn't see the penguin in that other photo, here's masa re-enacting it for you...

Warning:
If you ride your bike in a little square rut, you WILL wipe out.

Fox Glacier
this photo doesn't do it justice. in real life it is huge.

From the InterIsland Ferry
Northernmost parts of the south island.

Comments

[anonymous]

Awww! Why didn't you take a picture of yourself mimicking the "wipe out in a little square rut" sign? =)