Everywhere in NZ is quite a drive, so we set off through the Southern Alps stopping to admire Lake Hawea, and then stopped to visit some blue pools. These pools are normally blue, but due to heavy rainfall happened to be a muddy brown when we visited. To the extent that lots of people (us included) walked right on by without realising we'd reached our destination. Carys was not impressed, and our sarnies were a bit soggy!
Driving along the West coast was less of a visual experience than we had realised, you are basically in rain forest with no views for most of the way. However, when you do reach the coast it is quite breathtaking. I've never been anywhere so untouched, with so much debris and drift wood, all set off with really powerful surf. Its quite desolate, but past visitors have made lots of sculptures from piles of stones and wood.
Everywhere we went there was whitebait on the menu, which seems to cause a lot of excitement. Apparently prices reached $150 a Kilo in 2007. It seemed a little odd to us as its on every Italian restaurant menu in the UK. When we finally sucummed to a white bait omelette sandwich from the local chippy, it was quite special.
As we rolled into Franz Josef late afternoon, I suggested a detour to the glacier, but we decided to save something for the next 2 days. That was as close as we got, that night a big tropical storm blew in and closed all the roads. We spent the night running through the downpour to and from our chalet to the toilet block with a puking/squitting Carys. I think that is the only place we've stayed in years without en suite facilities, never again.
Despite her poorly tum, Carys tolerated a pram trip to Lake Matheson, where you can get fabulous reflections of Mt Cook in the lake. Our photo wasn't quite up to postcard standard, but we were pleased when Mt Cook peeped out of the cloud long enough to be photographed.
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