Bushline Homestay B&B Hokitika

* Cape Foulwind lived up to its name. We saw some seals from a distance, which was great considering how we haven't seen seals in a while.<br><br>* Pancake Rocks do not look like the said dessert.<br><br>* Blowholes are a visual delight. They shoot up soooo much water into the air - much better than those 'stacked' rocks. <br><br>* The poo ...

... larger outlets. <br><br>I have to say the west coast scenery is beautiful and I particularly enjoyed my trip to see the Pancake Rocks at Punakaiki &#8211; they are unique and I was glad to have taken the minor detour and put up with the hairpin bends to get there<br><br>Well folks that&#8217;s me for now just over a week in South Island, the weather is glorious and my fettle is good &#8211; next stop Franz Josef Glacier<br><br>PS: also by popular demand a photo of the cardie!<br>

... at all. Being the chickens that we are (Martijn isn't the only one that dislikes bridges that sway when you walk across them), we wanted to first SEE the bridge and THEN determine whether we were going to cross it. So we gave this a total miss and drove onwards. Oh, and the fact that the place was filled with sandflies didn't help either... We were having a relaxing day, but those little pests made us RUN for the car ;) The reason we ...

... to keep making the effort with arrogant a***holes who cant be bothered to make it back, they have already formed little friendship groups as they stay on the same bus for the package tour all the way round! So i saw the sunset, went to the lake and took some pics of reflections of a cool jetty, stayed in my costume til the group photo but then went off to bed in the ...

... and land for a small fee. We had an interesting evening observing the clientele and feasting on a delicious pizza and locally produced beer, before setting up Neil for bed in the dark! We hoped that the visual spectacle would become slightly more boring to allow us to catch up some time on our trip south - and give us a chance to take a time out! We were sorely mistaken. The scenery as we set off again, along the coast would easily rival Australia's Great Ocean ...

... privatised and then asset stripped, no investment and fell into disrepair. It was renationalised in 2002 but most of the traffic is now freight with only 4 long distance routes. In it's heyday in the 50s and 60s it carried 25 million passengers a year - p retty impressive in a country with only 4 million people!! A great shame as it would be fantastic way to see the country. Homestay Hospitality We had ...

... werden koennen. Aber als das Wetter dann am naechsten Tag soo grossartig war, hab ich beschlossen da trotzdem hin zu fahren. Der mann vom DOC war allerdings wenig hilfreich. Genau wie bei der Arbeit, wenn mal jemand was fragt: jaa, DAS kann ich von hier aus natuerlich nicht sooo genau sagen, aber mit dem Regen, hmmm, jaaa. also is natuerlich deine Entscheidung, ob du gehen willst, aber ich wuerds nicht machen. Aber musst du selbst wissen. Danke, vielleicht weiss ...

... stout staves with metal pointed tips, to help give us grip and test the ground. We then split into two groups and spend 2hr walking across the glacier. We cross crevasses, skip seracs and crawl through ice caves before the helicopters come back to pick us up. See photos. The drive to Hokitika takes longer than we had thouight so it is 2030 by the time we get into the campsite. Just in time to see the sunset from the adjacent beach.

Hmmm ... Not the best couple of days of the trip. The ferry from Wellington to Picton was fairly uneventful, the weather was a bit too overcast to get any decent pictures so I polished off another book as we gently rocked our way over the Cook Straight from North to South Island. On arrival into Picton the Magic Bus proved considerably more busy than the ones on North Island; still, I managed to get my rucksack stashed somewhere and get a seat that allowed me to stretch ...

... early morning rays. Suddenly we were not just looking at the snow and the mountians - we were in them. The cliffs rose sharply from the valley floor and almost immediately there was snow on either side of the road. There were plenty of hairy twists and turns along the way. Around one bend we came across a huge truck which had jackknifed on the icey road. Luckily the bus ...