Blogs from Picton, South Island, New Zealand, Oceania - page 17

After a whirlwind few days in Queenstown, it was time to take it a little easier up the West Coast of the South Island. We were in Glacier country. 2 massive glaciers begin up in the Southern Alps and extend down the range. They used to go all the way to the coast, but now they end a few hundred yards away. It is the only place in the world you will see glaciers in the rain forest (except for 1 place in S America). We chose to walk on Fox Glacier, the other is Franz Josef. It involved an hours hike up the cliffs until we reached the altitude where we could step onto the glacier, about 300m up. Then it was simply a case of putting on cramons and wandering for a couple of ... read more

Hello all. I watched your video to Brendan uncle Phil :) Very funny and horrifying :) And congrats on inventor of the year again. You are on a roll. I could probably use your learning cycle to spell a little better. For all of you english buffs out there, my spelling may not be as accurate as you like, but you know what i'm saying basically right? I think the last time I posted it was the day before we left Wellington, so I will catch you up. We left Wellington on the morning of the 6th by way of ferry to Picton, which is the closest town on the south island to Wellington. It was about 3 hour boat ride, and freezing on the top deck, but I stood in the blistering wind to ... read more

Our last day in the South Island From Westport, we drove through the Nelson Lakes National Park and passed through the Buller Gorge. We decided to visit New Zealand's Longest Swingbridge on route. It was surprisingly scary half-way across the bridge, because it was very narrow and the bridge floor was a grated construction, so you could see through it, down to the gushing river rapids below! It started swinging and swaying quite a bit in the middle, and you had to be careful not the lean too much taking photos! At the other side of the bridge we took a walk around the forest, which had historically been a gold mine. There were also signs of faults in the rock face from eathquakes back in the late 1800s. We wandered back to the bridge and ... read more

The Glacier walk at Franz Joseph was great fun. We decided to do the full day hike equipped with ice axes and crampons. We squeezed through a few tight crevasses and negotiated some quite rugged terain, but most of the fun was had launching our new toys into the unsuspecting ice. Once the day was finished we jumped back into our car and started a 6 hour night drive to motueka; booking accomodation and activities for the next day on route. We had a good night sleep (be it a short one) in the hostel and woke up early to await our pick- up to Abel Tasman national park. Here we spent the day on a guided kayak, out to find seals, and an afternoon walk over to a secluded bay where our 'water taxi' awaited ... read more

Traveling is expensive. On top of all the calculated costs like food, accommodation, and transportation, there's a bunch of hidden costs like buying a car and a towel (the latter I promptly lost in the very next hostel). The costs amount to a steady, troubling decline in my bank balance; which is fine so long as I keep putting things on my credit card! In order to cut back on my expenses, I've spent the last week cleaning toilets in the small seaside town of Picton. The hostel was short on staff, so I stayed there for free on the condition that I would clean the washrooms in the morning...not pleasant but it only takes about an hour. I agreed that I would stay for at least a week, and longer if I liked Picton. ... read more