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.