Larry's Rest Hokitika

Back by popular demand – the weekly(ish) blog

Just over a week now in South Island where the roads are much quieter and there are a few acknowledgements when I indicate or pull over to let the locals pass so I am in a better mood about that.

The ferry crossing was very smooth and as we entered into the Marlborough Sounds the sun was shining and I immediately had a good feeling or maybe it was the anticipation of all that wine tasting I planned!

I ...

... Bet you never would have guessed THAT from the name, eh ;)). The reason for the rather unique looking rock formations is that the limestone there consists of alternating hard and soft layers which erode at different speeds, thus creating the pancake-stack look. As we both are quite fond of pretty and weird nature, we ended up spending a lot of time here taking many pictures of every weird and pretty little formation that we could spot ...

... au Far West... Cest tout juste si ils n ont pas encore les locomotives a vapeur...lol J'ai donc goute a cette experience: prendre le train en Nouvelle-Zelande. Plus precisement, j'ai pris le Tranzalpine, le train qui traverse l'ile du Sud de la cote ouest (Greymouth) a la cote est (Christchurch), en m'arretant au milieu a Arthur's Pass... N empeche, le train a beau aller tres ...

... centre & wood yard, we walked around the street which was like going through a time warp brilliant. we decided to carry on driving to franz josef as we wanted to be as near to queestown as possible for new year as we had been told it wpould be a good venue for new year, we arrived at franz josef & what a wonderfull site overlooking snow covered mountains, we booked a flight for the following morning to have a snow ball ...

... that is where the train stopped... and I stayed because the Monteith's brewery was there. Montieth's Black is New Zealands black nectar. Neptunes is an excellent hostel. The building isn't that new, but they actually make an effort. All beds are actual beds - no bunks. Each has fresh linen, a towel, some soap, and a mint laid out on it. There is free pool and sky in the lounge downstairs, and free tea and coffee in the kitchen. And at 4pm every day ...

... the Fox Glacier. The helicopter carries six people beside the pilot and Janice has a great seat in the front. I notice the axe strapped to the side of the pilot's seat: slightly worrying. The pilot flies us round the glacier doing banked turns to show off various features. We then land, along with another two helicopter loads, and meet our two guides. Equipment is issued: crampons to stop our feet from slipping and alpenstocks ...

... trail with a couple of chicks. Punakaiki was very pretty, and the rock formations are fascinating, even though the blowholes were not working at low tide. Stopped at Greymouth information centre but decided to keep going to Hokitika, with a quick pub stop to try out the "Good B**tards" beer. Found a nice motel close to town, and there were a few good pubs and restaurants.

... since we are all broke backpackers, we are really limited in what kind of costumes we can make, so most people ended up making a costume out of garbage bags. it's amazing some of the outfits that people were able to create with such short time and very limited amount of money! anyway, i spent a whopping NZD 8 which is about 4.5 USD on my christmas gift costume made out of a garbage bag, wrapping paper, tinsel, ribbons and other ****.

... thing about glaciers is that you can't capture their enormity in a photograph, particularly on a grey day. We hiked in beyond the safety boundary (as did everyone else and) after crossing a rocky stream, got close enough to tell that they weren't lying: it is sluffing off front layers. The ice is a deep blue, but again, you can't really tell that in a picture. Then, we drove north to Franz Josef Glacier but the rain was even more intense. We opted for ...

... overgebracht en hebben daarom dus geen natuurlijke vijanden. Er zijn nu onderhand 17 miljoen possums die alles eten wat ze maar tegenkomen en
wat de Nieuw-Zeelanders lief is: van Kiwi-eieren tot de wortels van bomen op de bergen. De regering van NZ staat nu toe dat mensen met een geweer onbeperkt possums neerschieten en als je er eentje aanrijdt met de auto is dat "Good on ya!". Ik heb al mensen vol trots horen claimen dat ze meer dan 1000 possums gedood ...