Blogs from West Coast, South Island, New Zealand, Oceania - page 13

The last night that I had in Queenstown turned out to be a great evening, although I got quite drunk and didn’t go to bed till 5.30am, which consequently gave me 1.5 hours of sleep before I had to get up again, pack my bags and head of to the bus station to catch the bus up the West coast to Fox Glacier. I woke up feeling so rough and wished straight away that I had gone to bed earlier - but what the hell I’m travelling!!! So I just jumped on the bus and slept for the first few hours. I luckily woke up just before we went through this beautiful area, which is called the Haast pass. The Haast pass is an incredibly scenic drive through the Southern Alps where the road winds its ... read more

Awoke to another fine sunny morning at Fox Glacier Holiday Park. Because we arrived so late the previous night, it was a pleasant surprise to step outside the motorhome to the magnificent vistas of the snowed capped mountains surrounding the small township of Fox Glacier. The Fox Glacier Holiday Park was under extensive renovations, the recently opened new amenities centre were absolutely first class, as were the spacious motorhome sites that surrounded the centre. Each site had easy access to all amenities. We had breakfast, and I went to the office to pay for our site, after spending 20 minutes trying to find somebody to take my money, I found the Manager cleaning the bathrooms. He was very appreciative of my honesty considering he did not even realise that we were on a site overnight.....it was ... read more

Day 540 (19.09.08) Waking pretty early to a deserted campground and clear blue skies, we quickly packed the van to get on the road as quickly as possible - destination Lake Matheson. Arriving to a packed carpark, if there is a clear still day this is the place to go, we put off the idea of brekkie just incase any clouds floated into the frame. Arriving at the reflection island we were treated to the postcard view you see accross the south island with a clear reflection of the southern alps in the lake. Simply amazing. We stuck around for a little while taking in the majesty of it all before finishing off the circular walk back to the van. 9.30am and we had an hours walk under our belt - not bad! North again retracing ... read more

Day 523 (02.09.08) It had rained throughout the night and it was still raining in the morning yet we still needed to head south. With high winds and the rain easing we stopped on the side of the road by Bruce Bay to take in the awesome power of the sea as it buffeted the coast. Mid-morning rolled around and we stopped in at a salmon farm along the way where we were able to feed the fish, enthralled as they jumped and thrashed around to reach the food. We don't usually do this but decided to stop for some coffee and cake in front of the roaring log fire as a respite from the rain. We couldn't resit buying a little bit of salmon for our food stores as well! Conitnuing along the coast we ... read more

Last weekend, in order to celebrate our anniversary (we met 14 years ago!) we took the spectacular 5 hour Tranz Scenic Alpine train trip from Christchurch, over Arthur's Pass to Greymouth on the 'wild' West Coast. From Greymouth, we picked up a rental car and drove 3 hours up the coast, literally to the end of the road at Karamea. We managed an estuary walk before it became completely dark, stayed overnight in a typical Kiwi hotel ('The Karamea Hotel') and then did the whole thing in reverse on the Sunday...well, we had to get back to work for monday morning! We had time to see some of Greymouth (home of the awesome Monteith's brewery), Westport (home of a great cafe for sunday brunch), Lake Hanlon (home of, well, a nice lake...called Hanlon) as well as ... read more