Blogs from West Coast, South Island, New Zealand, Oceania - page 7

After the birdwatching of Kaikoura, I crossed over to the West side of the island. The weather had gone from sunny to cloudy with some rain, so unfortunately, I didn't see much of the mountains I passed through and over along the way. It was still a beautiful drive though, and it's so nice to drive around without much other traffic around! The Buller Gorge was one of the highlights of this drive. I stayed the night in a town called Westport. Not much to do here, just passing through. The next day was planned for a drive to Franz Josef, a town where mountains and glaciers dominate the landscape. It's supposed to be a very scenic drive, but the weather only got worse, so I didn't get to see much of the mountains. Along the ... read more

Childhood Memories In an old, dusty photo album at home there is a black and white picture of an expanse of tidal mudflats, water and some hills. A childlike arrow has been drawn on the photo, pointing down. Under the arrow is a white dot, a blob, an indeterminate something. I took the photo, so I know the blob is a white heron, or kotuku, which many years ago was a rare visitor to the Hokianga Harbour, in Northland. For a few days or a week or two (I can’t remember) the bird was a topic of conversation in the district. Most of the discussion centred on where it had come from. The consensus was that it had been blown across the Tasman in a storm, all the way from Australia, and was now feeding in ... read more

We started our day prepared for a long drive ahead as we slowly make our way along the west coast to see the Glaciers, final destination being Fox. We were tempted to stop in Wanaka and maybe go and do some wine tasting but we somehow managed to resist. We started off the journey well by mistakenly driving through Arrow Town but at least it meant we could cross it off our list of things we had seen and done. It is the perfect image of an old mining town from the Midwest. It was then time to face the challenging drive over the Crown Range Road. Hubby is thankfully used to driving these types of roads and found it probably more joyful than he should have. Thankfully it was summer as in winter I figure ... read more

At the end of February we had our first mini holiday as a family. The three of us took a road trip in our new car to the West Coast and enjoyed a night at Lake Brunner. The scenery was spectacular on the way and we were blessed with sunshine too - in good old kiwi style we had to stop to allow a cow train to cross the road, the ladies were off for milking, though a few stragglers were more interested in afternoon tea in the grass verge than actually crossing to the next field. The grass must have been greener! The lake was huge and sparkling and we enjoyed a lovely walk along the shores and then dinner beside the water too. The wee man was very obliging the whole weekend - fantastic! ... read more

18/02/10 Back to Pohara to walk the short Grove track - an amazing landscape of limestone formations - then back over Takaka Hill to Motueka, through the Motueka Valley, stopping at McLeans Reserve - free camping site by the river. 19/02/10 Backtracked to the road to Mt Arthur where we walked in to Flora Hut. The road up there was so steep they had concreted part of it. Then down to Murchison via the Porika and Braeburn tracks. We booked into one of the old pubs in Murchison, then drove to Six Mile where the original power station for Murchison was built. Everything is still all intact. There is an hour walk around the site, up to the dam and weir at the top. 20/10/10 Met Garth P at 9am to take him over the New ... read more