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| West coast scenes |
It doesn't take five minutes in the height of the summer to realise that New Zealand is full of touring tourist and they're all looking for the same thing. To travel the most spectacular areas of New Zealand and do some funky things on the way. This is where the west coast of the south island steps in. Alpine beauty into dense jungle into a rugged sea scape.
With almost hundreds of options along the coast of things to do, we had to pick and choose which one's got our time and which we'd have to pass by.
Stopping at Fox and Franz Josef glaciers were always going to be on the list. Two giant glaciers, reaching down from the highest peak in the Southern Alps, both with short easy walks to the terminal faces. Although lots of providers offer heli trips onto the glaciers and scenic flights, we settled for the short walks with the masses.
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| Franz glacier |
Driving north and passing Arthurs Pass without a visit could never be an option for us. The 924 metre pass, the home of countless Kea has a tiny township and boasts a fantastic DOC campsite in the centre of the town. With more day walks than you can shake a stick at, Amy picked the classic 1833 m Avalanche Peak and Lucy and me decided to take some of our climbing gear for a walk up Mt Rolleston. Unfortunately for us, we had failed to find out just how chossy the rock was in this area of New Zealand. After reaching the end of an increasingly crumbling ridge line at a round 1900m we called it a day. Not all was lost, the views were stunning, we tried out the new camera and we saw the most Keas we've seen yet.
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| Cheeky Kea begging for some food |
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| Thee head of the valley Mt Rolleston is the highest peak in the middle |
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| Pleasant compact rock on the way up |
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| Just before the rock turned to loose for us... |
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| View down to Arthers Pass and towards Canterbury |
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| Kea at the camp spot in town |
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| A kea on the pass |
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| Devils punch bowl |
Another must stop location was the pancake rocks blow hole. Producing its best water features at high tide meant that we needed to visit around 8:20pm. Tent up, a quick snooze and a modest feed, we headed for the pancake's as the sun started to dip towards the Tasman Sea. An easy way to spend a pleasant evening; sun, sea and roaring, spurting water...
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| West coast stacks |
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| Sun set near pancakes blowhole |
Onwards and upwards, our last stop was Buller Gorge with NZ's longest swing bridge of 110 metres and a flying fox (zip wire) back.
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| Tandem zip wire |
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| On the NZ longest swing bridge |
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| 110 metres.... |
With its scenic coastal roads, the West Coast has truly turned us into the travelling tourist. Cameras at the ready, asking for directions and never leaving the lonely planet book behind. We've taken the step and who knows when we'll stop.
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| A flower in the sun, in front of Nelsons Cathedral |
