The Untamed West Coast

After we picked up Black Betty, we started our adventure for the untamed west coast of New Zealand. This is Lake Rotoiti near St. Arnaud in Nelson Lakes National Park.

No elk or deer on the road here!

The star of Paparoa National Park is the Pancake Rocks. These are limestone cliffs that are slowly being eroded and shaped by the Tasman Sea.

During high tide, the Tasman Sea sends sprays of water through the blowholes. Many people watching get wet!

John battled the fierce sandflies twice so we could have yummy spaghetti for dinner!

This is Lake Mapourika, we camped here. It's just north of Franz Josef.

The Southern Alps from Franz Josef.

There is a permanent snow field high in the Southern Alps feeding down to two easily accessible glaciers. The first one is Franz Josef. An hour hike led us to a point about 60 meters from the terminal face of the Franz Josef glacier.

The second glacier is Fox Glacier. We hiked through a very dense rainforest to the viewing platform on the south side of the Fox Glacier.

Then we hiked to the dramatic terminal face of the Fox Glacier.

There was a rainstorm a few weeks ago. A huge chunk of the terminal face of the glacier broke off. There are still pieces floating in the river. John was lucky enough to find one of these floating ice chunks.

Lake Matheson is known for its reflections of the Southern Alps. The water wasn't calm enough for us to get a million dollar reflection photo, but we still got a good one of the lake and mountains.

Rock slide detour.

Driftwood on the beach at Bruce Bay.

We turned inland at Haast, where we went over Haast Pass and onward toward Queenstown. This was our camping spot at Cameron Flat on Haast Pass. What a view!