New Zealand 6 - West Coast of the South Island

Welcome to the next part of our trip to New Zealand. In this part of the trip, we travelled from the Abel Tasman area down the west coast of the South Island to Te Anau in the Fiordland area. We were on the road for 4 days in a row, so it was a little more difficult part of the trip, than our normal times of staying put for a few days.

One of the more ubiquitous sites in New Zealand is the farm scene. There are beautiful pastoral scenes of sheep, cows or horses grazing at the foot of glacier-covered mountains. Maybe you could see these types of scenes in the Alps, but I can’t think of anywhere else you would see these scenes.

When we were preparing for the trip, I checked out a library book which had a picture of the Punakaiki Rocks in it. These rocks are formed from layers of limestone that have eroded over the eons into these fantastic contorted shapes.

On the second day down the coast, we stopped at Fox Glacier. It was a very rainy day, but we walked out to the tip of the Fox Glacier. The town of Fox Glacier is a really nice little town, and reminded us of a lot of little towns in the Cascades or even the town of Mt Shasta, CA.

The next day was beautiful! Bright sunshine, no rain, no clouds, no wind. We had a gorgeous view of the mountains of Mount Cook National Park from our hotel parking lot.

The hotel owner asked if we were going to see Lake Matheson. We had planned for a pretty good drive for the day, so we said that we weren’t planning to. He advised us to go see the lake, as today would be a very good day. He was correct! The lake was a perfect mirror, reflecting the mountains without a ripple on it.

The southern part of the South Island has several beautiful long lakes that fill valleys for miles. When you leave the west coast and turn inland, you begin to have to go around or along side these large lakes. We had great picnic lunches on Lake Hawea, north of Wanaka,

and on Lake Wakatipu, south of Queenstown.

We will discuss Queenstown later, as we went back there after staying in Te Anau. But for now, we are arriving at Te Anau. The long trip down the west coast of the South Island is over and we will next go visit Milford and Doubtful Sounds, and do some hiking around the Te Anau area.

We'll leave you with a picture of Cameron Flats, which is a beautiful valley on the way to Te Anau.

New Zealand 5 - Abel Tasman National Park

Hello and welcome to the 5th post of our New Zealand Trip (actually 6th post if you count the map post, which is number "0").

We have now arrived on the South Island, and our first place to visit is the Abel Tasman National Park. We rented a motel room in Motueka at the Equestrian Lodge, which was a wonderful, lushly gardened place. It was run by a British couple, who kept it spotless.

But onto the sights! First up, a hike on the Abel Tasman Track. If you would like to ever visit and hike the Abel Tasman, here's a link to the NZ Dept of Conservation website.



The Abel Tasman is a beautiful Track. At the time of year that we visited (late September), you pretty much have it to yourself. We may have seen a half-dozen people all day. As you walk through the forest, you begin to feel that you have stepped back in time about 75 million years just from the vegetation.



Around every other turn, you pop out onto these wonderful views of the ocean. The track is full of little hidden beaches, that can be yours alone for the day. Just walk the beach, looking at the shells and anything else washed up on the shore. It was so tempting to just forget about the rest of the hike, but you know there are other things up ahead!

When the trail dips back into the forest, there are lots of waterfalls running as this is still very much the rainy season in New Zealand. Once we get further south on the South Island, there are parts of the West Coast that get about 250 feet of rain a year! They don't measure their rainfall in inches, they measure it in meters!

Here's another picture of the ferns that you are literally walking under. The fern tree in the center of the picture is about 20 feet tall. It's hard for a picture to capture the actual feeling of walking through this forest.

We had a lunch on a beach with only one other person there. Then we just wandered up and down the beach - a little too long! We weren't as far along the trail as we thought we were (John's mistake), so we really had to jog for almost an hour to catch our "ride" back. Just as an aside, in many of the NZ parks that are on the ocean, you can take water taxis (ours is in the picture below). You can take the taxi to a point in the park, then hike back. Or what we did was to hike out to a point to meet the taxi which brought us back.

Unfortunately, due to John's misreading of the map, we had to hoof it to get to the taxi. Of course, after we did that - the taxi was 20 minutes late!

Due to tides, the taxi could not take us all the way back to where we started hiking. It dropped us off, and we had a 45 minute hike back to our car. Along the way, there were more beautiful beaches since the tide had gone out while we were on the hike.

The next day, we decided to visit Pupu Springs (the Maori name is Te Waikoropupu Springs). Beautiful, clear water is upwelling at a rate of 14,000 liters per second.

It's a nice little hike to get to the springs, and gorgeous once you are there.

We only had about two days to spend in the Abel Tasman area. I know we short-changed it, but one month is just not enough for New Zealand! We are in the latter half of our trip, and we still have most of the South Island to see. In our next post, we ride down the West Coast of the South Island, heading to Te Anau, which is to be our base for our stay in the Fiordland area.