Well... we have been everywhere!

 

After the Catlins we settled down in Dunedin for a couple days of rest and decision making... then hit the road again heading north for a day then towards the west for our west coast experience!

 

The first night we stayed at a cheap camp site along side the highway with a busy train track on the other side... lots of noisy late night trucks and trains... and rain!  In the morning I went for my nice shower with some rather large bugs including finding a nice spider in my underwear!  I was a little disgruntled, hahaha!

 

We hit the road and drove up to Mt. Cook, the tallest peak in NZ... well... we couldn't see  it!  was quite foggy and the 'town' was fully booked, so we headed back down the road along the most amazing lake you could ever imagine!!  The colour was such a bright vibrant light blue!  Apparently it if caused by the glacier waters and the type of white rocks in the lake... Amazing!  We stopped at a lookout point and pushed our way down hill through the bush until we were at a private 'beach' on the lake... so nice!  Well worth the trudge!

 

That night we stayed in the town Twizel... a town basically created as an overflow for all the tourists in the area!  We got a nice little room that actually had a little tv in it, and a fridge!

 

Onward we went to Wanaka, a small town on Lake Wanaka!  We got a nice sized cabin with nothing but a couple beds for a great rate!  I went for a nice swim in the lake after making that booking.  That night we went to see a movie at the greatest little movie theatre!! It was really small and had sofas and lounge chairs and even an old car you could sit in!!  And it had a half way intermission to get up and enjoy some fresh baked goodies, fresh popcorn, homemade ice cream, or any number of great choices!  All at reasonable prices!

 

In the morning we drove to the West Coast, Stopping for Supplies in Hast and moving on to stay by a lake in the middle of nowhere!  We pre booked a place, luckily!  As the area was booked out for miles, and did it ever rain!!  It rained and rained and rained so hard!  We hung out with other travelers in the common room watching some movies that night!

 

In the morning we drove up to the Glaciers... we hadn't pre-booked!  Oops!  The rain was still coming down, so we kept looking for a cheap dry place to stay and completely lucked out!  Just outside of town from the second glacier town we had been to we found a holiday park with a great basic cabin!!  They were expanding and had all new facilities, nice clean showers!  Decent sized room with a fridge and tv and for less than the hostels in town!  We stayed there 2 nights and went on lots on walks including walking to the base of one of the glaciers, brrrrr it got cold there, we were quite close... but for safety reasons the have it roped off a bit back from it.  The other glacier we walked up to the top of a hill for a great view of it.  And there is a great mirror lake that is supposed to be the view of all views with the glaciers reflecting off of it, but with the fog we didn't;t have much to look at, but still was a nice walk!  oooo! One night we went for a walk in the forest, after dark where there were glow worms all over!! It was crazy cool!

 

The next day we drove to Greymouth... a very gray little town!! Very industrial!  Once again the rain was enjoying coming down... ahhhh this is why they call it the WET COAST!  we stayed at the coolest little hostel, getting, once again, the last room!  for $1 more than the other rooms it had a private shower/toilet!  They said they couldn't understand why no one wanted it, sheesh!  Spend a dollar and save an hour waiting for a shower in the morning!  Hahaha we were lucky!  For the short period the rain had stopped we went to the beach for a nice walk!  And that night we stayed in and hung out with some travelers and watched a NZ made movie.

 

In the morning, it was my birthday!  We drove up to westport stopping at the pancake rocks, very cool!! The  rocks laid up like pancakes along the rugged coastline with huge blowholes spouting water all over unsuspecting tourists!  Hahaha!  I really liked it there, took a bunch of pictures!  Upon arriving to Westport we decided to splurge for my birthday and got a real Motel room!!  It was under $100 and the last room around, it was a spa Motel, like the others around, but one of the few non spa rooms, so a great deal with everything but a whirly tub!  It was huge, in comparison, and a nice little patio!  A king sized bed!  A big TV with more than one fuzzy channel!!  It had 5 channels!!  and 2 were movie channels!! Woah!  After oooing and awing we went for a drive to a large seal colony next to a beautiful beach!

 

The next day we drove to Motueka that is on the North Coast neighboring the Abel Tasman National Park!  A very nice small laid back town!  We got an early night that night before heading over a BIG mountain, winding up n up n up n over for 2.5 hours!! and I was thinking 50km on the map looked close!! HAHA... we stopped for a nice walk out to a secluded lookout with a great view!! and stopped at some roadside lookouts along the way too... when we finally reached the other side we went to what I thought would be a place to swim in some springs!  But they have banned swimming there in recent years... still, a very nice forest walk along the springs.

 

We drove out as far as we could go to Farewell Spit and walked up top a nice hill to get amazing views in every direction!  Yes, I have pictures!  Endless pictures!!  all stuck on my iPod for now!  After we went for a long drive along a dirt road to the start of a bunch of day walks, we had some lunch then did the 45 min walk over rolling hills through sheep pastures then walked for what seemed like forever along sand finally reaching the crashing ocean!! very beautiful!  You will have to see the pictures to see what I mean by the endless sand, dunes and valleys of sand!!  We laughed at the tourists that had drug their bathing suits and towels and lunches along as this was no place for any of that!!  The wind was blowing the sand all over and the beaches were all unsafe for swimming!

 

 After a long day of exploring we found a nice campsite on the water, a beautiful swimming beach!  In the morning we went and explored Abel Tasman for a while... doing a great walk along treacherous cliffs and over a one man swinging bridge way up high over crashing rapids!!  Oh my!!  After that nice walk we drove up a road down to a cove, an hour along a 1 lane dirt road where we had to drive through streams and the such in our little car!!  eep!! we made it though! hahaha  it was high tide, but when it is low tide you can walk strait across the lagoon!  After there we drove back through Motueku, the longer way, and through to Nelson where we camped for the night!

 

In the morning we drove to Blenheim were we ended up getting a basic cabin for the night, I really needed a day out of the sun as it was starting to make me a little ill!  We were lucky as it we had camped there we would have literally been eaten alive by bugs!!  I walked over to the camping area and was instantly attacked by sand flies that bite hard!!  and they had to spray the bathrooms down a few times a day, every time there would be well over 100 dead mosquitoes laying along the sinks!

 

In the morning we drove to Picton and reserved a campsite early in the day before we went for an amazing walk (2.5 hrs) along the top of a peninsula with the most breathtaking views!!  it was around 30 degrees Celsius by noon!  Gasps!  Luckily the lady at the camp site told us which site had the most shade around it as by dinner time all but 2 sites (ours included) had sun blazing down on them!  We were nice and happy!

 

In the morning we drove down to Kaikoura where we were lucky to find a place!!  A very small touristy town where all the cool things to do were over $100, up to over $500... we got a very inexpensive room at a hostel with great Maori hosts, the sweetest couple!  That night we enjoyed the most amazing sunset atop a water tower overlooking the  town, the ocean in 3 directions and the mountains that went on forever!! i took a lot of pictures!!  We had actually met a couple in Invercargil where the husband boasted he was a true sunset chaser and the best he had seen was from that exact spot, boy was he right!!

 

I am out of time!!  Right now we are in Christchurch for our last few day on the south island!  We have one night on Banks Penn. tomorrow night, should be amazing there!