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From Queenstown we hopped on another coach to take us out onto the West Coast of New Zealand, up to the township of Franz Josef. This was just a regular coach so we weren't expecting much info on what we were driving past, but the coach trips here are so much better than the Greyhound buses in Australia. There were only 8 people on the coach for most of the day, so we had basically the entire thing to ourselves so we could pick the best seats, and both coach drivers that we had gave us loads of information about what we were driving past. We started off heading inland, towards Lakes Wanaka and Hawea which are both beautiful with clear blue waters and surrounded by more snow capped mountains, and because we were ahead of time the coach driver made quite a few stops so we could go out and take photos (you don't get that in Australia!). We then headed a bit further north and stopped for lunch at a little cafe in the Makarora Delta, which is a huge valley surrounded by lush farming land and more mountains. From there we headed into a rainforest and stopped off to have a look at Thunder Creek Falls while the coach drivers swapped buses. From here we headed up and over the mountains via the Haast Pass, which had some pretty tight hairpin turns and lots of very small bridges over very cold looking water, before we finally made it out onto the West Coast. This is the most sparsley populated part of New Zealand, and it feels very rugged, like a proper 'last frontier'. We started heading north up the coast, and again were ahead of time so we stopped off at Knight's Point to get a great view over the cliffs. Next up was another cafe stop, this time at a salmon farm where we could see salmon of all different sizes swimming in the pools below. We were then back on the road for the last part of our journey, stopping off for more photos at Bruce Bay (setting for the 1980s film The Piano) before finally arriving in the tiny township of Franz Josef, where we were hoping to take a helicopter ride up onto the glacier. Although we have been super lucky with the weather for all of the trips we have done so far on our travels, unfortunately our luck ran out today and our trip was cancelled due to the weather forecast - to be fair this was probably the right choice because it has rained here solidly for most of the day. We decided to make the best of things though and, once we had been given our refund, we went to the West Coast Wildlife Centre to spend the morning finally seeing New Zealand's most famous bird - the kiwi. We both thought they were pretty small birds, but they turned out to be pretty massive! We saw the rarest of the 5 species, the rowi, which lives near to Franz Josef and unfortunately there are only around 375 birds left. The wildlife centre has a conservation programme to help them out though, and it seems to be going well which is good news. After coming back to our hostel for lunch we went out to enjoy the glacier hot pools, which are basically natural spas. There are 3 public pools fed from water from the glacier, and they are 36, 38 and 40 degrees celsius - a lovely way to relax on a cold rainy day in New Zealand! We were disappointed about not getting to go up on the glacier, and unfortunately we couldn't rebook because we are getting a coach to go north tomorrow, but we've still had a nice time on the West Coast, and we're looking forward to going up to the North Island in a couple of days to enjoy the rest of our time here in New Zealand.
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