Blogs from Franz Josef, West Coast, South Island, New Zealand, Oceania - page 2

After working for the vineyard, ARA, I decided to take a little road trip down the South Island for the weekend, via the West Coast. One of the more spectacular road trips Ive ever taken. Almost crashed the car a few times trying to get the best shots and just staring at awe under the mountainous glory of the Southern Alps, or for the LOR dorks, Mt. Doom and Helms Deep. Made my way to Wanaka to visit a few friends and catch up on some fly fishing. I wanted to quote some "River Runs though it", but I think I already did in a previous blog entry. The fishing is amazing, even if you skunk out, you're still garanteed a beautiful time. Climbing has also been a persuit Im endevouring. Hopefully Ill be able to ... read more

Day 14: I left Wellington early to catch the first ferry with everyone! I herd that the view from the ferry was really nice but since I was feeling pretty ill from the motion sickness I spend pretty much the whole 3 and a half hours sleeping which sucked! And then pretty much right after we got off the ferry we had to get back on the bus and drive for another 3 hours, so I pretty much felt ill the whole day, no good! When we got to Nelson I went for a walk around town. Its not at all like Wellington, from what I saw it just felt like a normal little town so I was not to sad that I was only spending one night there. When we got back to the hostel ... read more

Into our final stretch back home we stopped at the Franz Joseph Glacier. The glacier is located on the West Coast of the South Island. It is unique in the fact that it descends from the Southern Alps to just 200 metres above sea level amidst the greenery and lushness of a temperate rainforest. The area surrounding the glacier is designated a World Heritage Site. We plan to spend a full day hiking up the glacier at some point, but the kids did not have the reserves to take on the climb this time. However, I talked everyone in to "stretching their legs" with a short walk to get a better look at the glacier. I sold it on the basis of a 30 minute walk, but it turned into a couple of hours. The weather ... read more

One night, we arrived at our designed campsite area pretty late, and as Tomer remembered that a guy once told him that some Kiwis live in the area, we decided to do some Kiwi watching before going to sleep. Now, turns out Kiwis, those flightless birds native only to New-Zealand, are quite rare and furthermore nocturnal, so it is really exceptional to see one in the wild. Hence, we weren't really expecting to see one. And indeed we didn't. We saw two. The first one was a male, who stood just a meter from the road. As there was a group of people watching him even before we came (actually this is how we found him - it was probably some Kiwi watching tour) he was completely motionless, as a defense mechanism. We could only see ... read more

The Moari (Natives) call New Zealand "Aotearoa" which literally translates too: "Land of the long white cloud". We reckon a more suitable name would be "Land of too much long white cloud, and too much rain"! The weather today was terrible: cold, rain, and thick low cloud. We couldn't see those supposed fantastic views which all the brochures, leaflets and postcards show: The Fox or Franz Josef Glacier, the snow capped mountains, or the rain forests. Except for a walk around Fox Glacier village and Franz Josef township we petty much spent the whole day couped up inside the campervan. Campervans a small spaces by the way! Our Heli-Hike in the afternoon on Fox Glacier but it was cancelled - slightly gutting(!) but we're almost glad as we can now save the money for something else ... read more