The West Coast

Happy Cinco de Mayo, friends! Erik and I held our 2nd Annual Australian-based Cinco de Mayo party last night and it was a huge success. Beergaritas were a hit once again and, like last year, we had many different countries represented including Italy, Spain, Netherlands, UK, Canada, India, and a few Australians, of course! :)

The views on our drive from Wanaka to the coast were stunning!

iPhone shot from the passenger seat!

Haast Pass

 

Thunder Falls

Once we got close to Fox Glacier, our next destination, we looked for a spot to spend the night. We ended up heading down a long, unpaved road to Gillespie's Beach, a free DOC campsite. From there, we had amazing views of Mt Cook, the highest mountain in New Zealand.

It was hard to choose what to watch...the mountains or the sunset over the ocean!

The next day, we visited both Fox and Franz Josef glaciers, where we did short hikes at each place. Unfortunately, you have to do a guided tour to be able to walk onto the glaciers, so we were not able to get super close to the ice.

Our view of Fox Glacier from the picnic table where we cooked breakfast.

You never know what you will see in the middle of the road in NZ!

Hiking around Franz Josef Glacier

Franz Josef

Sister-in-laws!

Glacial water = awesome

That night we drove to Hokitika, a funky town on the beach, where we dined on delicious pizza from Fat Pipi...good stuff! We camped that night at Lake Mahinapua, and we got rained on. A LOT.

 

See that puddle in the tent?!

Turns out that rain was the theme of the day, as we got rained on twice while out exploring Punakaiki Rocks. Erik and I originally had plans to visit the famous pancake rocks on our way down from Abel Tasman, but because of the bridge washout, we changed those plans and took a small detour up to Punakaiki on our way to Greymouth.

Do they look like stacks of pancakes to you?

Once we arrived in Greymouth, our last stop on the coast before heading east towards Christchurch, we decided we needed to visit Monteith's, a recently built brewery offering a great deal on beer and cider tastings.

Monteith's also gave us vouchers for free beer that could be used at a local pub in Greymouth, so we stopped by a random pub to redeem our vouchers. We had quite an interesting experience sitting at the bar with the locals in the middle of the afternoon on a weekday!

From Greymouth, we headed towards Arthur's Pass, our last overnight stop on this amazing New Zealand adventure!