NZ Day 19 - Wellington

The weather has been pretty horrendous since I arrived in Wellington (it's even made the news - apparently that's quite an event!). So, I took full advantage of a sunny morning to go for a run.

I'm staying with friends in Miramar, so decided to head around the water away from the city, towards Shelly Bay. I can't believe this is only 8km from the city.

The (infamous?) All Blacks Hollywood sign.

After treating myself to a morning of spa treatments at East Day Spa (highly recommend it), I wandered through the city. Couldn't resist a photo of the Beehive & Parliament House.

Later in the day we went for a stroll through the Botanic Gardens. This is the Puriri Tree - which had leaves growing right out of the large branches.

The rose garden.

A couple of very cute ducks. Have I mentioned how much I love ducks before? I love ducks :-)

The Wellington Cable Car. We didn't ride it this time, preferring to walk instead.

There it goes.

The evening finished at a bar I knew I had to try as soon as I heard about it - The Library.

Don't worry, there were real books inside :-)

NZ Day 17 - Nelson to Picton

Day 17 didn't involve much photography, because most of it consisted of a ferry trip back to Wellington.

But, I did go for a run in Nelson that morning. And I did take some photos. This time of the Japanese Gardens at the edge of town. They were small, but pretty.

The drive from Nelson to Picton has some really nice views over Queen Charlotte Sound

Timber waiting to be shipped from Picton. An eye-opening reminder of what happens to all those beautiful pine forests we had been driving through for the last 2 weeks (yes, I know they're plantation, but I still think they look nice).

NZ Day 16 - Westport to Nelson

We stayed in Westport the previous night. It wasn't the most picturesque town (though it did have some nice cafes & restaurants) so I didn't take my camera with me on my morning run. We hit the road early & before I had even had time to have a coffee we had hopped out of the van & headed off to check out the Lyell Walkway. We weren't planning to do the whole loop, just up to the Dray Road. But first we reached the creepiest cemetery ever.

It was totally Stephen King.

The forest had taken over most of the graves.

From the cemetery we continued on & the track became quite difficult, climbing & winding & being generally slippery & unsteady underfoot. The bro commented just before we got to the top "this had better be worth it". I'll let you be the judge - here is Dray Road. It's just a sign.

Having almost frozen to death that morning on the Lyell Walkway, it was a strange experience to emerge from the wilderness into the glorious sunshine of Golden Bay. What a truly magnificent place. We had lunch at the Shoreline Cafe in Kaiteriteri. This is the view from our table. We could have been on the north coast of NSW.

Continuing into Golden Bay, we started the original & best long and winding road - 25km of switchbacks, winding road and crazy horseshoe bends over Takaka Hill. Though the driving was difficult, it made for some nice views over the bay.

Shortly after reaching the bottom of the hill is Te Waikoropupu Springs (Pupu Springs for short). These are some special springs. Here are the stats:

• NZs largest freshwater springs (90th in the world)
  
• Reputedly the clearest water in the world
  
• 14,000 litres of water discharged per second
  
• They also have massive spiritual significance to the Maori

The water flows very fast, but you can still see how clear it is.

Here you can just see the small whirlpools being created on the surface from the water surging up from below.

They are a beautiful aquamarine blue colour - it makes you want to dive in for a swim. But that would be silly, because there are signs everywhere telling you not to touch the water or even go near it.

The smaller Fish Springs nearby are equally as clear.

Our final stop for the day was the remote Wharariki Beach. The beach is at the end of a 6km unsealed road, then a 20min walk over private farmland. Right away we stuffed up, taking a wrong turn & missing the short 20min track to the beach & taking the 3km route instead. As it turned out, we would have missed some pretty cool scenery if we had taken the shorter track. Like this lonesome tree.

And this second lonesome tree. Considering that we were perched on the edge of NZ, the wind was predictably crazy. As you can tell by the 2nd lonesome tree almost being blown away.

Finally we reached a sign. It seemed wrong to me that there could be a beach within 5 minutes of this rolling farmland.

But, we climbed the hill, and there it was.

About 10-15mins later (we got a little bit lost again), we reached the wildest beach I had ever seen.

I loved the massive rock formations.

And this massive cave.

And the generally wild feel about the place.

Look, you can tell how much I love it. Right after this photo was taken my hair did a great impression of a mosh pit by flying into my face.

On the walk back I couldn't stop marvelling at the juxtaposition of the tamed farmland with the wild coast.

These sheep have a pretty awesome view.

Although I generally prefer wild environments, manmade ones can be just as nice sometimes.

Sheep!

Look at this little dude. He's all like "who are you?". "What do you want?". "You want to cut my beautiful wool off?". "You want to strip my skin & wear it as a boot?". "You want to eat me?". "WTF?". Then he ran away. I would too, if I knew what humans were thinking about doing to me. That's why I'm vegan.

NZ Day 15 - Fox Glacier to Westport

Call me crazy, but I went for a dawn run at Fox Glacier. It was SO COLD. I can hear you saying "of course it was, you stupid idiot, look at those mountains". But seriously, I thought my fingers were going to freeze off.

Despite all that, I reckon the cold was worth it to see the mountains waking up.

That morning we headed to Lake Matheson. It's a pretty famous lake because it offers an almost perfect reflection of Mount Tasman & Mount Cook on a still day. We were pretty lucky & arrived before the wind picked up too much.

Mount Tasman looks bigger because it's closer, Mount Cook is under cloud in this shot.

We had originally only planned to visit Franz Josef Glacier, but our hostel receptionist had recommended Fox, so we gave it a go. A 30min walk or so got us within 200m of the glacier. It was really weird, I thought it looked a bit like concrete. I also wasn't expecting it to be surrounded by green vegetation. But now I know better.

The landscape on the walk up to the glacier is quite impressive too - look at these near-vertical rock walls.

We stopped off at Franz Josef as well. The surrounds are much more beautiful - almost like a rainforest.

You can just see the black strip down the middle of the glacier - that's the result of a landslip a few weeks ago. Next trip I'm going to save up some money & do a heli-hike or something onto the glacier itself to get more of a feel for it.

We continued heading north up the West Coast, stopping in Hokitika for lunch. We happened to park next to the library :-)

After searching unsuccessfully for some jade jewellery we moved on. The wind picked up, showing us yet again how wild the West Coast can be.

I don't know if these rock formations have a name, but they reminded me very much of the Twelve Apostles in Victoria

Another star attraction on this stretch of road is Pancake Rocks & the Blowholes at Punakaiki. The whole area was being pounded by the water. The noise of the surf hitting the Coast along with the wind and cold spray made the whole experience quite extreme.

The Blowholes were really cool. This is my favourite - the Chimney Pot.

So awesome :-)

Here you can see why they are called Pancake Rocks - the limestone has formed in round discs that look like stacks of pancakes.

Here are the same rocks being smothered by the water from the blowhole. The best thing about this was that the wind was so strong that we all got drenched every time a really big surge came through. It didn't stop us eagerly waiting for the next one though :-)

I could have walked around this area all day, just watching mother nature doing her thing. Check out this rock - now you see it.

Now you don't.

One final shot of that wild coast - I couldn't get enough.