Lake Pukake
Lake Tekapo
Roadside Friends
Magnet Bay
Akaroa
Lake Pukake
Lake Tekapo
Roadside Friends
Magnet Bay
Akaroa
The Franz Josef Glacier and the Fox Glacier are located in Westland Tai Poutini National Park on the West coast of the South Island, NZ. You can hike from the temperate rain forest to the base of the glaciers in about 45 minutes.
Greymouth
When we arrived at Greymouth, the only waves to surf were concrete.
National Kiwi Center, Hokitika, West Coast, South Island
Kiwis are New Zealand’s national bird. We had no idea that they are nocturnal and rarely seen by humans. We ended up going to the National Kiwi Center that keeps a couple of Kiwis at a time in captivity. Unfortunately, we were not allowed to photograph them. The center also has a tank of giant eels, like the ones we saw in the rivers of Tahiti. In an attempt to get over our fear of them, we fed them. I’m not sure if it helped or made it worse.
Willie needed a quick surf fix, so he randomly turned down this dirt road called “Beach Street”. We found a gnarly beach break and a beautiful place to camp for the night. A local later told us that he had never seen any one surf this break. Hmmm…I wonder why?
As if the waves weren’t gnarly enough, these large pieces of drift wood were floating in the water.
Aimee surfing the driftwood.
Sunset with driftwood.
We woke in the morning to our first view of Mt. Cook.
On April 1st, we departed the North Island from Wellington on the Interisland Ferry and arrived in Picton about three hours later.