south island road trip!-Day 5

oooo Golden Bay

creating our own path through chetwood forest (takaka hill)

windy fun at wharariki beach

Day 5- Golden Bay

Golden Bay was one of my favorite spots on the south island.  We started our day exploring Takaka.  We found a spot down a gravely path where apparently a small part of the first lord of the rings movie was filmed.  It was the part where Aragorn leads the hobbits into Chetwood forest after Bree.  We ran around there for awhile and made our own paths through the woods.  Poor Jenny and leah both had a fun time falling into some gorse bushes, but we all came out alright eventually (ps. thank you mrs Kolb for the guide book, it helped us find so many cool spots!!).

After that we made our way into town where we wandered around in some shops and then drove awhile to get to Wharaiki Beach where the lady at the info center said there were playful baby seals.  The hike out to the beach was beautiful.  It went across a farm with lots of sheep and rolling green hills.  Then the wind picked up.  We almost got blown off the hills and then when we finally made it to the beach we were being sand blasted.  For some reason we thought it would be a good idea to eat lunch on top of the tallest sand dune.  We ate crunchy pb&js and then hightailed it back to the car.  It was beautiful tho.

After that we made for the west coast and began to head south.  While trying to find a spot to pull over we saw quite a few night critters.  We even saw a kiwi bird crossing the road!!! It was really exciting!  That night we also saw a rabbit and a hedgehog cross the road while we made our way through what we thought was the creepiest town ever, Westport.  It just had that creepy small town with mullets kinda aura.  Anyways, we waited to pull off till there was a good buffer zone of a few kms between us and westport.   

 

south island road trip!-Day 6

chilling out in hokitika

My favorite new zealand theater!

Day 6- Hokitika

So after we woke up a comfortable distance from Westport we decided to keep heading south along the coast towards the glaciers and see what we could find.  The fisrt major town we hit was Greymouth.  We decided we should probably try and find a place to shower.  It had been 6 days since we showered and well that sandstorm up in golden bay was making us look a little crusty.  

We found showers outside a gas station where you could pay 2 dollars for every 4 minutes.  It was beautiful.

Greymouth is an old coal mining town, as are a lot of the towns on the west coast.  We wanted to do this trek where we could visit old coal mine where there was a huge accident years and years ago.  It reminded me of Wesley's song. We didnt get to hike it becasue we couldnt find it, but I still though it was pretty interesting.

After Greymouth we hit Hokitika where we spent most of the day.  It was a cute little town and we spent out time milling around some of the shops and wandering around an old used books store.  It was right on the beach so we grabbed our books and found a nice place to sit and read for a awhile.  

Around 6 or so we grabbed some seats in a little movie theater where they were screening Lars and the Real Girl.  It was run by one man who renovated an old bank and set up shop.  Its filled with couches and he sold snacks like incredible organic dark chocolate, beer, wine and of course the new zealand preferred cinema snack; jaffas (little chocolate balls with a hard orange flavored outer coating).

Anyways, the movie was really good and I think you can probably rent it in the states at this point.

south island road trip!-Day 7

an awe inspiring scene just a few meters from where we fell asleep the night before

yummy glacier water!

franz joseph glacier

fox glacier

Day 7- The Glaciers

The night before when we had pulled over to sleep we kept hearing strange noises.  Feeling safe from creatures in our van we ignored it and fell asleep.  When I woke up the next morning I was surprised to hear that sounds had not stopped.  I got up and went outside and could see some water through the trees.  It must be ducks making all of that noise.  I walked along a short path to the water and what I saw took my breathe away.  The sun was rising behind the trees and partially lighting the fog covered lake.  On the smooth dark water tons of black swans glided gracefully their sillouettes set of by the white fog make their presence both mysterious and regal.  It was really incredible.  The only thing ungraceful about these creatures were the honking noises they made!  It was an amazing thing to wake up to.  Again, I was in the right place at the right time.

After that noisy wake up call we continued to head south for another exciting experince.  Its not often you get to see two glaciers in one day! We started off at Franz Joseph Glacier.  Before we even saw the glacier we could see the milky blue water running down from the mountains that we knew had to be glacier water.  We scooped some up in a water bottle to possibly drink later after we used my awesome UV light filter to clean it (we didnt end up filtering it we just drank it lol) and ate lunch by the water.  

When we finally got to franz joseph it was a long walk up to the glacier face.  It was a strange sight.  In one way it was kind of just like a pile of snow being squished between some mountains.  But it was quite immense and there was not snow anywhere else, in fact we were in short sleeves at this point.  We didnt get all the way to the face because we kept stopping along the way to look at pretty waterfalls or cool rocks.

Then we took about a half hour drive to Fox Glacier.  I actually think I liked this glacier better because the surroundings were immense and epic looking.  We walked as close to the face as we could get.  I kind of wish a could have touched it, but o well.  

It was pretty cool to see glaciers because there might be nothing left of them in a few years.  They may be the only ones ill ever see.

south island road trip!-Day 8

becoming a giant at puzzle world

eating lunch at lake wanaka

yep, they are about to jump out of an air plane

Day 8- Wanaka 

We woke up outside of Haast and drove south to Wanaka.  Before we got into town we saw a sign for Puzzle World and decided to check it out.  It was awesome!  We went through a room of 3d holograms, a tilted room that made all the furniture look level so that we couldnt keep our balance and were falling all over the place, and an optical illusion that demonstrates how they made the hobbits look so small while filming in the first movie.  There was also a really hard maze that we only cheated in a  little bit to escape:)

 Later on we ate lunch by the lake and watched silly tourists ride around on paddle boats shaped like tractors and push each other into the freezing cold water.  Then we found the local cinema to check out movie times and discovered they had homemade icecream!  I got cinnamin and honey flavored ice cream that was soooo good it left one of those delicious films on the top of my mouth:)  

After we found the info center Jenny and Leah decided it was time.  They were gonna go skydiving.  I went with them to the airport and took pictures of them floating down like dots from the sky.  It was pretty awesome to watch and they were happy cuz they didnt have to pay a million dollars to get their pictures taken.

 

After that crazy adventure we decided to go see Run Fatboy Run at the Cinema Paradiso in town.  Its a really cute cinema with couches and even a car with seats you can sit in.  It had really funny commercials before the movie that really could only be made in New Zealand.  lol There was one with a guy that made shadow puppets on the screen that was really great.  Anyways, the movie was pretty funny and I'd say it was an all around good night.  Nothing can go wrong when I've got some popcorn and raisinettes!

south island road trip!-Day 9

our view of wanaka from mt iron

queenstown harbor

my eel friend from the underwater observatory

a beautiful view from queenstown gardens

Day 9- Queenstown

We woke up to a beautiful sunrise in Wanaka and decided to do a short trek before heading to Queenstown.  We found a trek that was about an hour and fifteen minutes return that went up Mt iron.  When we got to the top we were pleasantly surprised at the great view of the city and the lake below.  

Soon after we drove the short trip to Queenstown.  This was the first "big city" we had seen since Christchurch so it was a bit overwhelming, but eventually we found a place to park and we wandered over to the info site.  We had picked out some exciting plans for Queenstown.  We wanted to book a rafting trip that took us down the Kawarau River or to us the Anduin river from lord of the rings.  So we booked our trip and excitedly went on our way to explore the town.  

Despite being full to the brim, the town is actually quite pretty and rests by a small harbor surrounded by mountains.  One of the highlights of my day there was paying 3 dollars to go into the underwater lake observatory.  Of course it was a bit small and dinky to some, but I loved it!!  You got to go below the water line and watch all the fish and ducks near the pier diving around underwater.  The coolest part were the eels that occasionaly crept up to grab some meat from the feeders.  

After that I walked around by myself for awhile in the Queenstown botanical garden.  There werent any flowers out because it is autumn, but the colors of the leaves and the reflections on the pond were beautiful.  

At the end of the day we met up with our friend Christy at her hostel called Bumbles.  We cooked there and she let us take a shower in her room ( 2nd shower of the trip).  It was fun to catch up with a group that had gone a different route because they told us about some fun activities we should do after Queenstown.  

After hanging out awhile our early to bed early to rise sleep schedule caught up with us and we headed out of town to find a pull off.