New Zealand Adventure Day 3- Rapahoe to Fox Glacier via Punakaiki

We left Rapahoe bound North for Punakaiki and the Pancake Rocks. The journey took a little under an hour- the rocks themselves were so called because they looked like stacks of pancakes- a lot of them! The blowholes were big gaping spaces where the water crashed in making a blowing sound. We then hit the road to find a lunch spot. That took us back towards Greymouth and essentially resulted in us eating cereal and chip sandwiches surrounded by cows in a pasture. Scenic but not the most glamourous!
It was a four hour drive alongside the Southern Alps to reach Fox Glacier. We stopped to admire the view, take photos and pause for OMG moments along the entire journey. The sun was shining, the snow was glistening on the mountains and the time flew. A brief stop in Whataroa was our only pause before reaching Franz Josef! By this time we were officially in 'Glacier Country' and every turn held a spectacular view.
Our final destination of Fox Glacier was better still. We arrived at 5:30pm and parked up the campervan under the mountains before going on the hunt for glacial activities. Thankfully, the village was so small that made this easy! Our plan of doing a glacier guided walk the next day was soon abandoned in favour of a helicopter flight up Fox Glacier! And to our surprise, they wanted to take us up in half an hour because the weather above the glacier was great!
So we rushed away and got ready, and met our pilot, Nathan, at his helicopter. Little did we know, Nathan had even better plans than to just fly up Fox Glacier, we also flew over Mt Tasman and Mt Cook, the highest mountains in New Zealand!! Next thing we knew, we were gliding over beautiful snowy mountains- though the weather on the ground was dark and cloudy, above the glacier there was not a cloud in the sky! Nathan landed the helicopter somewhere up over the clouds, on the top of a mountain in pure, untouched snow. Of course the two of us made the most of this photo opportunity, before flying back over the huge crevasses of Fox Glacier- spotting tiny people hiking below and passing numerous waterfalls.. to say the view was breathtaking would be an understatement! It was just the two of us and Nathan in a tiny bubble of a helicopter, flying aroung mountains, snow, and eventually treetops and scaring a few sheep. Well it is New Zealand, we couldn't miss the sheep! It was the experience of a lifetime and something we will never forget- in part to the almost continuous video footage and 150 odd photos we took.
After we recovered we had dinner- a clever concoction of tinned spaghetti and fried eggs, cooked simultaneously but not together on one ring!- we tramped (what kiwi's call trekking, NOT to be confused with a past time of ladies of the night!) into a forest walk where we spent half an hour spotting glow worms. They were like little Christmas lights, beautiful sparkling away around us- yet camera shy, no matter how hard we tried! The end of our tramping came after I convinced myself we were 'good for the killing and making into lampshades' (I didn't have my machete with me) so our retreat was hasty!

New Zealand Adventure Day 2- Hanmer Springs to Greymouth

Monday morning in Hanmer was beautiful- sunny and warm. We tried (again, in vain) to get our gas cooker working (camping is a learning process) before Sarah cooked porridge in the kitchen. We walked to the hot springs and spent three hours relaxing in pools of varying degrees and sulfer-y smells. After repeating dinner from the night before with a fish n' chip lunch (apparently it's a kiwi staple) we hit the road again bound for Greymouth on the west coast. The 7 highway took us parallel to the Grey river, which provided many AMAZING photo opportunities (you'll have to get used to me going on about the scenery) and our first view of the Southern Alps. Our arrival in Greymouth was uneventful- it surprised us as a bit of a ghost town. We found out later it was a bank holiday, but still- the place was deserted. Nothing open, no people on the streets- it seemed the only life was found in 'Countdown', which is Woolworths, but with a worse name. We decided to camp up in a place called Rapahoe- it was right on the beach and so beautiful! We were able to again watch the sunset, this time over the Tasman Sea, and count the stars from the moon roof in our campervan, whom we dubbed 'Murray'. We had also figured out the gas cooker thing (it needed matches, they didn't give them to us, not our fault! :D ) so we toasted marshmallows on the cooker with our new friend Jade the dog. Even getting to the showers was an adventure, we got to run through a little forest path complete with fairy lights! It was so much fun!



Sarah cooking on the back of Murray



The sunset view from our campsite- beautiful!



Oh no I burned my marshmallow!



New Zealand Adventure Day 1- Christchurch to Hanmer Springs

We arrived in Christchurch- it was a nicer day than the one we left in Sydney, that's for sure! Picked up our Jucy campervan and headed into town. We quickly decided we were too tired to look around (from our previous night out with Banana and one hour sleep in Sydney) so after a burger and stocking up on groceries, we began our drive to stop number one- Hanmer Springs! Immediately we noticed the incredible scenery- unlike anything we had seen before! And SO many sheep!
Hanmer Springs is a beautiful town known as an alpine village and famous for its natural hot springs. It feels a bit like a ski resort- fresh cool air, snow capped mountains and wood-clad buildings. I guess not wood-clad but made of wood. And then dressed in it ;) We watched the sunset and had fish and chips (or 'fush n'chups' to the locals) and a fried egg (why???) before I spent an hour searching the van for the power plug while Sarah made up the bed. Annoyingly, my search was in vain and unnecessary as we didn't need power- self contained campervan! Typical.



First evening's sunset at Hanmer Springs