Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
After Marlborough Sounds we headed south along the West Coast, from Havelock to a place called Westport. The landscape was quite stunning. We pulled up at the only pub in Westport, which is next to a prison and had a pint while watching a rugby game. We also made friends with a Jack Sparrow look-a-like who told us how amazing it was to always beat the world cup holders at rugby, far better than actually winning it.
It was a very chilled out day. The following day we headed down to Greymouth, finding absolutely nothing to do there so we headed down to a place called Hotitika, where we found another brilliant beach. All the beaches in NZ are vast and deserted. We got the bbq out and spent a great evening eating burgers, drinking beer and playing American football with our new ball. It was another wonderful sunset - we have so far been very lucky with the weather, it was completely perfect.
The following day we headed out to the Franz Josef Glacier, the first of the two main glaciers on the West Coast; this one and the Fox Glacier. We parked up and went for a walk along the valley to the terminal face of the glacier. This was an awesome sight. Having studied glaciers at school and then again at university I found it very interesting, actually seeing one up close and understanding what it was I was reading about. It really made the topic much more interesting. The terminal moraine (debris) was incredible to see; the size of some of the boulders the glacier can move and deposits was awesome, so much bigger than you can ever imagine.
In the evening we headed to the pub and entered the pub quiz. We managed 10/10 on international bank notes, 9/10 on sport and did well in other areas such as entertainment and "name that band". However, when it came to New Zealand history we were stumped. A magnificent 0/10 didn't help our cause. It was a really fun night, and the locals were a lot of fun and very welcoming. We had a bit too much to drink, so we had to sleep in the helicopter car park - not a smart move come the morning!!!
- comments