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After departing "Windy Welly" we had an unusually calm ferry trip over to Picton on the south island. Our hostel there was called Tombestone, named after the neighbouring graveyard. The front door was in the shape of a coffin lid and there was free breakfast - always a bonus (the breakfast that is not the funny shaped door). From Picton we took a water taxi (or boat) up to a section of the Queen Charlotte track which is a walk through the Marlbourgh Sounds. We walked around 25km, the first hour being in the rain so we nearly dried off by the time we finished. The boat then picked us up and we headed back to Picton after picking up and dropping off mail bags enroute. Just before arriving in Picton a pod of dolphins races our boat - a lovely end to the day.
Next we made west for Nelson (making an essential stop for Elaine at the Montana vineyard on the way). A beautiful sunny day was not to be wasted when Brian decided to pluck up the courage (or stupidity) to jump out of a plane at 13,000ft. Despite being cold and suffering sore teeth (???) he
says he enjoyed it.
We couldn't leave Nelson without taking a daytrip to the Abel Tasman national park to walk part of the coastal track. It was again a fine day and another one of those boat/taxi things dropped us off after viewing some seals enroute 26km from our end point (our legs are sore as we write this by the way). This walk has been one of our many highlights of New Zealand so far - the scenery was stunning and we had fun trying to walk the low tide route at the wrong time of day.
It was time to head further south with our sore legs after the action of the last few days - next stop Franz Josef on the west coast. Again we have been lucky with the weather - we stayed in the area for 5 days and did not see a drop of rain in this rain forest. Despite staying in Franz Josef we decide to take a guided day hike onto the other glacier nearby (the Fox glacier). The Fox glacier is 13km long gets an average of 45m snow a year and apparently consists of enough ice to provide
each person in the world with a litre of margarita mix a day for the next 40 years! With this in mind, we take an axe up onto the ice.
Before we left the west coast we decided to undertake another bloody walk - this one over 2 days. A 17km walk on the Copland track that promised a reward of a "premium" hut and a hot bath in the form of geothermal hot pools at the end. The hut was so "premium" (and our lightweight sleeping bags so inadequate) that we did not even take off our coats to go to bed!
Time is running out and we have much of New Zealand still to see so bye for now.
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