Wellington Journal

South Island Days 11 – 13: Glaciers & Beach

Until I started putting these pictures together, I’d forgotten how beautiful it was between destinations in New Zealand.  The west coast of the south island was particularly gorgeous; and it didn’t hurt that the weather was spectacular as well.

By this point in the trip, I was doing the driving whenever I could so that Sara would be able to enjoy the scenery.  She’d gasp at the scenery around almost every corner (as would I—though I had to glance at the road every once in a while too).  Eventually it would just be too much for her and she’d tell me to pull into the next lookout so that we could take some pictures.  Consequently, we have a number of pictures of the drive up the west coast; one more stunning than the next.

On this trip from Cardrona up to the beach at Hokitika, we passed by a couple of glaciers: Fox and Franz Joseph.  I’ve done a number of beach trips, and I’ve never before had them interrupted by glaciers.  Certainly not by glaciers with such non-glaciery names.  But these two glaciers are a real tourist attraction on the south island (which is not always a good thing: a week or so before our arrival some boneheaded tourist crossed the do-not-cross line and managed to get himself killed).  So despite the long drive and tired kiddos, we took time for a quick stop at Franz Joseph to have a look-see.

We didn’t get as close as one is allowed; we just took the simplest walk to an overlook.  But it was still pretty cool.  Unfortunately, we happened by at the same time as a large German tour group (for some reason, Germans seem to be the most numerous of all foreign tourists), so we didn’t spend a lot of time at the lookout.  Just up and down and back into the car and on to the beach.

A panorama from our drive up the west coast

A shot of the coast, traveling north

The bit of Franz Joseph we saw from afar

The goal of our trip up the coast was Hokitika, a beautiful little beach community on the west coast of the south island.  I didn’t take many pictures, mainly, if I remember correctly, because I was reading and playing games and relaxing and walking downtown with Meg or Katie or going out for ice cream … in other words, enjoying the beach.  Luckily, Katie and Sara made up for my laziness by taking some great shots.  The HOKITIKA driftwood sculpture (which is about 2.5m high, btw) and the self-portrait with Ali are Katie’s; the sunset shots are by Sara.

From the driftwood sculpture competition during our stay

Katie and Ali enjoying the beach

Enjoying the front porch and some ice cream

Sunset on Hokitika

As per usual, you can see more of these shots up on our Picasa website.

Labels: South Island trip

posted by Dug @ 2:05 PM