Blogs from West Coast, South Island, New Zealand, Oceania - page 32

These signs were among many at the Bushmans centre. They made us laugh anyway!... read more

From Queenstown we headed North past Lake Wanaka and Lake Hawea. The weather was beautiful, the scenery spectacular, but the hairpin bends and one-way bridges across the rivers made for a slow journey. We enjoyed lunch on a very desolate but pretty Haast beach. Unfortunately we had entered sand fly territory and could not hang around long before making a dash for the car. The west coast of the South Island is sparsely inhabited and the few towns that you do come across are small and seem to lack life. The town at Fox Glacier is no different. We arrived in the afternoon and checked into an uninspiring but comfortable holiday park. After dropping our gear off we headed to Matheson Lake for a walk and to try and catch the reflection of NZ’s highest peaks ... read more

argg!! chippy's exhaust pipe broke in half. yah yah, you can laugh....but it's not funny. we are stuck in this crappy industrial town with no car and nothing to do. bleck. and it's saturday so we have to be here til monday when the garages open again. i slept on all this negativity and now i'm over it. just 12 k's out of town is cape foulwind....another seal colony and some really rugged coastline. i rented a bike and road out there and back for the day. it was beautiful, as most things are here. not a bad way to spend the day and tomorrow chippy gets fixed and we're off to the glaciers. woohoo!! woohoo is right. we're now at the franz josef glacier. it's a great little mountain town....boardered by the franz josef glacier ... read more

Days 67 & 68 We boarded the bus and headed for The Bushman Centre where we saw a dvd of how they used to chase deer in the mountains on helicopters then jump out wrestle them and tie them up and fly them to deer farms in order to control their numbers. We then looked at their big fat pig, evil eels, a couple of possoms and deer - a very random place. We then dropped Stuart off to do hs sky dive over the fox glacier. He was taken to the town of Fox Glacier where he donned his jump suit and boarded the tiniest of planes which was pioleted by a ten year old boy (or at least he looked like one). Stuart was taken up to 12000 ft flying over Mount Cook and ... read more

Day 65 An early start, we headed for Abel Tasman National Park. We went for a walk along the beach where we parked ourselves for a bit. The tide came in loads in the few hours we were there so we had to go an alternative way back! In the afternoon Stuart did a jet boat ride on the Buller Gorge which was good fun, the boat did quick turns and made everyone soaking wet.... read more