The South Island - West Coast

The south Island

After crossing the straight between the two islands we decided to stay in the port town of Picton for the night. Picton itself is a pretty small place, with not much to do so we headed out looking for somewhere to get dinner, and came across “the flyng haggis” so in we went for a pint of tennents...tasting nothing like the real stuff back home lol. The barmaid was originally from Falkirk and knew Rosie's and Noddy's uncle Tony (Porko).

The next day we headed up the coast to the Marlborough sounds ( an area of valleys flooded by the volcanic activity and rising sea levels ) The views here are stunning, as you's will probably see from the 55 million pictures that we seem to be taking. Part of the surrounding scenery is the Abel Tasman national park, where we decided to test our horse riding abilities, on the white sands of the beach. I'm not sure how it ended up like this but arlenes horse was called prince ( for a princess aparenty ) and mine was called kermit the frog ...??? As first our time on a horse we did well, both managing to get them up to a trot, and hanging on for dear lives till the horse had had enough. It was a brilliant afternoon and much better than either of us had expected it to be. :0)

From here we tried to book sea kayaks to move further up the coast ( there are no roads so it was either walkig or kayaks) but the weather turned against us and rain set in for the next 4 days which meant that we had to abandon this and move on to Westport. In Westport we were able to get out to the coast and see a seal colony in it's natural habitat, which was what we were hoping to do in the sea kayaks, so we felt better after seeing them. The weather was still shocking at this time, with snow and hails battering most of the country. The hail was big enough to kill 4 cows that were out in the fields, and the snow was everywhere except the west coast of the south island which was thankfully where we were.

Also in Westport was “shanty town” which is a working museum of what life was like in New Zealand in the 1860's, during the gold rush period. So after panning for gold, and getting to keep what we had found, ( but we are not millionaires just yet ) riding a steam train, dressing up in period costumes to get photo's took, and visiting the many shops including flood hairdressing, and griffin's beehive store we set off on the long drive to Franz Joseph.

The main attraction in Franz Joseph is the glacier which is moving down through the mountains at 2m per day. We decided to go for a half day hike up the glacier, just so we could wear our alpaca hats, and were astounded by how beautiful the ice and the glacier was. The day flew by, and before we knew it, it was time to be heading to the pub for a few well deserved drinks. A few quickly turned in to many, and before long we were entering ourselves in to an assault course / drinking game the length of the bar. So with Arlene on my back, i had to run around the course, stopping for her to feed me drink, then at the end she had to run to the bar and drink shots. A respectable 2nd place was where we ended up, being only beaten by 0.2 of a second by a team of locals...cheats.



The next day ended up being a sore one, red wine, followed by shots and lager are not the best mix, so driving was kept to a minimum, as we headed to Fox glacier ( where they make the mints... only kidding ). After spending the day feeling sorry for ourselves, we had an early night so we would be fresh for going to lake Matheson. This is the most photographed lake in New Zealand, as the still waters and backdrop of Mount Cook are awe inspiring, so after taking loads more photos we were on our way again to Wanaka.