**It has been awhile since our last blog, so this
one is rather lengthy (prepare yourself).**
We have now been in Big Bertha for 9 days and Jared
has successfully driven a stick shift on the opposite side of the road without
wrecking. Wooooo! Don’t get me wrong; we’ve had our issues with Big
Bertha. From “third f***king gear” not working properly to a shower that
reeks of old sewage, and sandflies overtaking our van, it has been an
experience to say the least. BUT we still love each other…wait not just
love, LIKE, each other so that says something. Since our last post, we
have traveled to the most northern tip of the South Island and halfway down the
West coast.
Below are some pictures from Queen Charlotte Drive along the northern
coast. This is the sound where the ferry travels between the north and
south islands of NZ. The drive is absolutely beautiful….but quite
challenging. Big Bertha made some rather interesting noises going through
the mountains. During the drive, we stopped in a little town called
Havelock for some grub. Havelock is known for having green muscles.
We posted the picture of the food because it is, by far, the best food we’ve
had on our trip so far. In the last picture, Jerbear and I were
experimenting with our tripod and camera timer for the first time...ha!...but
you can get an idea of what the scenery was like throughout the drive.
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Before we left for this trip, Jared had given me
the poop scoop on all the cool hikes in NZ. One of the hikes we wanted to
do was in the Abel Tasman National Park and is part of the “nine great walks of
NZ.” To get to the specific part of the hike we wanted to do we had to schedule
a water taxi, 24 hours in advance, to drop us off (see picture below – very
cool). Obviously we were excited to do this. However, that next
morning we woke up to a complete down pour……… so we hiked in the pouring rain
for 5 hours. Worth it? Heck yes.
The picture below is of Split Apple Rock, a
renowned landmark of the national park. We just thought it was a sweet
picture, so we wanted to show you.
During our main hike, we did a detour to
Cleopatra’s pool. Basically, Cleopatra’s pool is just a raging river full
of rapids and rocks. The reason why I’m telling you this is because to
get to the top of Cleopatra’s pool, you have to jump from rock to rock.
Not too difficult for someone who is 6’4”; however, a totally different story for
this short girl who fell “short” (pun intended here) of her stepping
stones.
** For some reason this picture won't rotate...**
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Our next stop along
the northern coast was Golden Bay. We ventured up to Te Waikoropupu
Springs, the world's cleanest fresh water spring besides what is found miles
beneath the ice in Antarctica. It's so clean, they don't even let
humans touch the water. Here is a picture of the natural spring...if you
look close, you can see where the water is being discharged (in the light blue
section). Supposedly, this spring discharges water at a rate of 14,000
liters a second!
We were totally sick of the rain and got lucky
enough for some sunshine, so we headed to the beach. To be honest, we just
kind of expected a normal looking beach but we were totally wrong. We
pulled up to the beach parking lot and were greeted by 2 peacocks.....you know,
just begging for food scraps. After a short walk through a sheep field,
we found a little slice of paradise.
OH! And we can't forget to mention the seals.
Seals are like water dogs here - super friendly for the most part.
On the beach, there was a small pool of water with about 6 seals swimming
around in it. So obviously we wanted to take their picture, so we got
closer and the seals started to come out of the water to greet us. And
from then on out, they were just show-offs. ;) These pictures were taken
no more than 2 feet from them.
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On our drive down the West coast, we pulled off to
the side of the road for a cave hike. I don't think we realized what we
were getting ourselves into. The hike was supposed be about an hour and a
half one way so we knew it would take a little bit to complete. New
Zealand, in general, has a ton of water (rivers, ponds, etc.). So it was
only appropriate that we had a river crossing in our hike. And by river
crossing, I mean wading across (barefoot, of course) in knee-high water.
Don't forget that it's winter down here - this water wasn't warm.
As your crossing, you don't know whether to scream because your feet are
ice cold or because there are sharp rocks jabbing at your feet. Would we
do it again? Absolutely. The end result was freaking amazing.
Here are some pictures from that hike.
After our hike, we stopped to see Pancake Rocks. There are other rock formation like this in the world. Scientists are still speculating on how these were actually formed. They got their name from their pancake-shape. These pictures don't even do them justice.
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More rain came our way as we headed down the coast but that didn't stop us. We bought a massive umbrella and checked out the Hokitika Gorge. This place was gorgeous...even in the rain. I know we say that about practically every place we go but it's so true...this country is awesome. This area of the West coast gets a significant amount of rainfall each year. The average for the area is 12.6 meters per year! ....so very appropriate that we visited the gorge while it was raining.
We just got into glacier country last night and are headed out for some hikes today. Tomorrow we are scheduled to do a heli-hike on top of Fox Glacier. More blogging to come. :)
