New Zealand: West Coast Region

I’ve returned to Arizona! Now that I have access to my photos again I can now get back to covering our New Zealand adventure. Before I jump in, last week I hinted at some exciting news. The original news has been postponed for now, so you’ll all have to wait in suspense, but I do have some other news.

I am employed again! I will be returning to a past job for the Polar Express Attraction at the Grand Canyon Railway. Thankfully there will be many safety measures in place, and after weighing my options I concluded that this position will probably be as safe, if not more, than any other customer service position I can get right now. All I can say is I’m happy to be employed again since my un-employment is almost up, however this means that I may not be as reliable when it comes to posting! In the next two weeks I’ll be trying to write many posts ahead of time, so fret not followers! And as always, thank you for you endless support in my blogging endeavor.

Now onto the West Coast in New Zealand! This weeks post will be brief, mainly because I’m tired from traveling and feel like vegging out. We last left off with Jay and I in a rocky spot after convincing him to stop half way between the Nelson Lakes and Glacier areas…because I wasn’t upfront about how tired I was after our few nights backpacking in the Nelson Lakes area. We spent four nights just north of the Franz Josef Glacier, Otto/MacDonalds DOC Campsite, and honestly it felt so nice to stay in the same place for that long.

The first night we just settled in and hung out. The following morning I got up and enjoyed the lake we were camped by that provided us with wonderful view of the South Alps. The rest of the day we spent exploring the trail that leads up to the Franz Josef Glacier. What’s somewhat funny is that Fox Glacier is the well known and more well known glacier, but yet we had a nicer experience and better views at the Franz Josef Glacier. The walk up to Franz Josef was very well maintained and the views were amazing. It is a very trafficked spot of course but well worth the crowds. Now I’m not going to full blown start ranting because then it’ll end up being the bulk of this post, but if tourists and fellow adventurers want to continue enjoying places like this we need to start protecting them. Most importantly though we need to fight climate change by both becoming more aware of our- humans, you and me- impact on the environment and make big corporations be held accountable for their mistreatment of the environment because the glaciers are melting at rapid rates and soon they won’t be around to enjoy anymore. Okay mini rant done.

The next day we didn’t do too much and lounged around the campsite and lake for awhile until venturing out to find something to do. We decided on four wheeling with the Across Country Quad Bikes company. After being tested to see if we could successfully drive the four wheeler we headed out down the river bed below Franz Josef closer to the ocean and through what looked like a jungle. The clouds had rolled in during our adventure so the view of the glacier wasn’t fantastic but driving four wheelers around that area was exciting and thrilling enough on its own. Jay drove most of the way but once we got to an easier spot I took a crack at it, and thankfully had no mishaps. A trip with this company is well worth the money and I would definitely do it again.

That evening we had dinner downtown with views of the Southern Alps in the background, probably one of the best dinner back drops I’ve ever had. After dinner we made our way back to the campsite. While hanging out by the lake we noticed a few families getting ready to go out on their jet boat. Jay and I had just been discussing what we planned on doing at our next stop to Wanaka and whether we were ever going to do a jet boat excursion when one of the family members asked if we wanted to join! The local folks were so nice to us and we had a blast on the jet boat.

The next day we spent the morning hiking up to the Fox Glacier. You can’t hike as close to the glacier due to how steeply eroded the river bed is and so the only way to be close to it is by dropping down on to it by helicopter…this was not in our budget. We enjoyed the glacier from afar and enjoyed a wire bridge farther down the river bed.

Later in the afternoon we went for a walk down Gillespies Beach and up to a lookout over the ocean. It was nice to bury my feet in the sand, but super wierd to think that only a few hours prior I was looking at a glacier. The most magnificent part of this area to me was how many different environments you could experience around two towns- glacial, jungle, beach, river, and lake.

That night we ate dinner on the beach by the lake and watched a beautiful sunset unfurl in front of us. It was the perfect ending to our four days spent in the glacial hot spot of New Zealand. The next morning we packed up camp and started the drive down to our next- and most favorite- area of the whole NZ adventure: Lake Wanaka.

Thank you for reading this weeks post and stay tuned for our adventures in the Lake Wanaka area that I’ll be writing about next week. Things that I’ll be covering next week are mountain biking, a tree growing in a lake, a bit of camping drama, and some plane piloting! See you next week.

Mahalo and Kia Ora!