The West Coast Again

We're playing a bit of catch up on the blog this week. We left Waimate on Thursday afternoon and arrived in Christchurch on Tuesday afternoon via Wanaka, Haast Pass, the West Coast, and Arthur's Pass (the long way).

We told some of you we were going to hike the Routeburn track in Fiordland but we had a change of plans. The last time we were here we were in a bit of a hurry to get to the North Island. Also, it was rainy and cloudy the whole time we were on the West coast (which is its usual state). This time the weather was mostly sunny and clear! It’s great to see Westland in different light. Thanks to Rusty and Wal we have pictures of it.

Nothing terribly exciting happened during this leg of our trip, but we did see a few cool things that we wanted to share.

Mt. Cook was clearly visible and we could see it reflected on Lake Matheson. This is the stuff NZ postcards are made of. We definitely couldn't see Mt. Cook from the West coast when we were there in October.


Last time we tried to see Franz Joseph Glacier it was raining and miserable. The glacier looks tiny here but...


...you really have to click on this picture to see how big it is. In the lower right corner there are some tiny little specs. Those are people on guided glacier hikes.


You can't say they didn't warn you about the hazards.


This picture doesn't look like much at first glance. What you need to realize is that this is a ONE LANE bridge for cars, bikes, pedestrians, and TRAINS on the main highway for all of the western South Island.

For our two days the weather turned cloudly and rainy. We've been through Arthur's Pass two times now (once on train in August). It's supposed to be really striking but both times we've seen little more than low clouds. We got the impression we really missed out on the awesomeness of Arthur's Pass.

Now we're in Christchurch waiting with bated breath for calls about our car for sale...

Carrie