Mount Cook

Mount Cook

The highway near Twizel

Lake Tekapo

Original AJHacket Bungy

We couldn't leave Queenstown without a visit to the home of the Bungy jump, which is set on the Kawarau river about 15 km outside. Sadly as we arrived at 4:30 in the afternoon, the jump had just closed so we were unable to live the experience! (shame).We did enjoy looking at the gorge from the bridge though, it is  spectacular.

The next couple of days were spent driving through the remote hilly region of Northern Otago and Southern Canterbury, via Mount Cook, NZ's highest peak, and staying in towns such as Cromwell, Omarama and Fairlie until we reached the East coast at Timaru.

Queenstown

Our latest favourite place in New Zealand is .....

This place has got everything : Mountains, Lakes, Beaches, every outdoor activity you can think of plus more!
Needless to say it was really sad to leave Queenstown - we definitely have to return in the ski season!

The highest sealed road in NZ across the Crown Range to Queenstown

Another kiwi sanctuary

The day we arrived...

....the day after!

The Luge boys

The Luge girls

A speedy boat ride on Lake Wakatipu

Gondola ride up to the Luge (Bobs Peak)

Why?

Family Silcock and the Remarkables

Wanaka

We had no pre-conceptions of Wanaka, booked initially for 1 night at the campsite and ended up staying for 3 days and nights as we fell in love with the place .....Must come back sometime for the ski season...

The coldest pool in the southern hemishere

Puzzling World

Water fun

More suitable for Hugo

Lake Wanaka

Haast to Wanaka

Jumping for Joy

Thunder Creek Falls

Jolly good views

Aspiring National Park

The drive from Haast to Wanaka was quite spectacular. Stunning mountains, blue blue lakes and waterfalls galore.

Glacier country

Franz Josef

Fox glacier river bed

After spending 3 nights on the west coast our next stop was Franz Josef. Where, unbelievably on a South Pacific Island only a few kilometres in from the sea and at 300m above sea level there are several glaciers. Franz Josef is the first one we come across on our route south. It measures about 12km in length and can be seen from the car park at ground level. The day we arrived it was very cloudy and the top was not visible entirely.
We parked the camper and along with many other people walked for about 20 minutes along paths and the glacial river bed to get a better view, and as we did so, the clouds cleared and we were able to see the 'blue ice' at the top. Many visitors had taken helicopter trips to view the glacier from above, or hired guides to walk either up or down it. We are used to skiing on glaciers in europe, but this somehow, was different. Quite surreal. We spent 2 nights here, all the while trying to coax Hugo into doing a helicopter trip. Nothing would budge his refusal. For some reason on this trip, Hugo has become much more cautious than ever before. An example of this was on a visit to the Kiwi centre in FJ. The kiwi bird is nocturnal so viewing is in a darkened mock-up of a kiwi's habitat, with the help of infra-red lights. Hugo managed as far as the door leading to the kiwi house before  he turned and ran! It took a lot of coaching / bribing / scolding  before we made a return visit later in the day to view the 3 adorable birds. Kiwi's are now his favourite bird and 'glaciers are rather boring, mummy'

Franz Josef

To Greymouth and Hokitika

Wednesday March 2nd we travelled along the coast road to Greymouth. This area is well known for its mining of coal nowadays (and gold over a hundred years ago), and is where the sad event of last November, when those poor miners lost their lives down the Pike River mine.
We had not been prepared for the dramatic change in scenery as we drove along. Stunning views. Tropical rainforest meets the Tasman Sea.  Nicau ferns and the rocky coastline was staggering to see.
The 'Pancake Rocks' at Punakaiki were a great stop for a short walk and photos of limestone rock formations along with a blowhole.
This area is also a good place to buy Jade/Greenstone in New Zealand.
 The next day we visited 'Shanty Town' a replica gold mining village, where Hugo was thrilled to ride a steam train and Michael was thrilled to find 'Gold' when gold panning, Bea was thrilled to eat Icecream.
Thursday we visited Hokitika, a little town on the coast which thrives from tourists flocking in by the coach load to buy Jade.

Tasman Sea meeting rainforest north of  Greymouth

Artwork on Hokitika beach

Gold-panning

Pancake Rocks

Heading for the West Coast

It was rather sad to leave the 'chilled out' area of Nelson and Golden Bay but we did have some kind of time scale to keep to, be it quite relaxed. We headed up to the Nelson Lakes country (the only route to the west coast). The hilly going on mountainous region was quite beautiful. As we drove to look for the DOC (Department of conservation) campsite that was on Lake Rotoiti, we were suddenly stunned by the vista as we arrived (despite the camp having 'No Vacancies').

Lake Rotoiti

It was quite late for us to find 'No Vacancies' (about 6.30pm)at Saint Arnaud, and it wasn't for another 2 hours of driving and searching that we found a campsite by the side of Highway 6 just short of Murchison. A quick pasta supper for all and we settled down for the night joined by approximately 300,000,000 midges and  100,00 sandflies. The site was also next to the Buller River (well known for salmon fishing). 

The journey  to Westport next morning/lunchtime was another scenic adventure. Lots of twisting, winding roads, through gorges, over narrow bridges, with jungle-like vegetation left and right. Just before our destination we pulled over to a 'lay-by' to honour the victims of the Christchurch earthquake with a 2 minute silence of our own at 12.51pm.

The weather seemed to close in as we arrived and that night saw the worst winds and rains that we had ever experienced. The camper swayed and rocked with the gusts and the rain pelted on our roof. 

Buller Gorge

Cape Foulwind

As always, it seems, in NZ , the next day was much better and we set off to look at another seal colony at Cape Foulwind (aptly named by Captain Cook).