We had rain all the way North to just before Greymouth. At times it was torrential and we had to drive very carefully. Most of the time it was a heavy down pour. We’ve never seen so much rain nonstop, I wonder how many inches have fallen?

but we are safely here and on the 5 th floor of a hotel . Wifi and all amenities , in a town and back to normality and …the sun is shining….

We are breaking our journey here and go across the island to north of Christ Church tomorrow. We stay there until 24 Feb and then to hotel at airport ready to fly to the north island on the 25 Feb for 2 weeks.

missing you all but looking forward to the rest of our trip love mum xxxx

Hi this is the first day we have had attrocious weather. It rained most of the night and this morning everywhere was grey damp and poor visibility. We decided to brave the rain this morning and go down the coast southwards 30 miles to where the roads end!

The rain ceased at times and otherwise drizzled. The road runs parallel to the sea with sandunes and rainforest each side. The 3 rivers we crossed on long narrow one lane wooden bridges were very wide and fast flowing, bringing loads of silt and gravel down to the sea. They each had a sand bar right across them as they met the sea. Down the estuaries there were swing devices for catching whitebait in long nets.

As we got to the end of the road at Jackson Bay we both felt the road would soon be washed into the sea. The waves were crashing on the beaches up to the road and the hills coming down to the road were almost vertical and looked like they often had landslides. It was a very spooky road. It is a conservation area all along the coast for penguins and kiwis. There were signs all along warning of keeping clear of penguins crossing, needless to say we didn’t see any!

Jackson Bay is a scruffy place with shacks and caravans and workmen on the road.

It was an experience! We turned around and came back to the visitors centre at Haast

The visitor centre is very interesting and explains about the sandunes creation the pioneers who settled here the Maori and about this World Heritage area with the rain forest and mountains.

We had lunch at a nearby restaurant and I had whitebait salad. It was ok but the whitebait was bland and tasteless!The salad was nice😂

Lets go inland and see the waterfalls we said…..but then the rain came in and we gave up and came back to our motel. The rain is torrential now and almost horizontal but it has a warm wind with it.

I will read my book and listen to music.

The sheep in the next field look sad😳😳

Well what an eventful night! The thunderstorm started about 5pm and lasted until about 3am! The lady at our motel said she had never seen anything like the lightening before . First the TV went off no signal so we went out for dinner …the wifi was down!

We hadn’t been back in the motel and the power went. Fortunately we had our iPads for music and light and we had a torch.

The rain was persistent and at 4.30am it was so loud on the roof I felt scared.

THURSDAY

it has been raining 24 hours. We stayed in our room all morning as the deluge continued. This afternoon we travelled inland along the gorge as the rain was not so bad. We are so pleased we did as there were waterfalls everywhere plunging down the sheer mountain sides!

just wait till you see the swollen rivers and the waterfalls. As soon as I can have access to good wifi I will send them. They were unbelievable!

We have a long journey north tomorrow to Greymouth hope it stops raining by then and will post this blog whenever I find an opportunity. We are in a very remote area xxxxx

 

Hi Matthew and Blandine
We have found a wifi connection that works! We are both ok and heading north to Greymouth at the moment. The weather is terrible at present it has been raining since Tuesday consistent and torrential with power cuts to and wifi down. Thunder and lightening. On the plus side the waterfalls and swollen rivers are amazing. We are ok and sort of enjoying the weather. It is set to improve by Sunday and we are very careful when driving through it.
Hope your moving plans are going well . Let us know how you are. Love you very much mum and dad xxxxxx for Louis

We are not able to have much wifi use so I will add photos next week when we are in such remote areas

 

“This is The South West New Zealand World Heritage Area with some of NZs most unique scenery and wildlife.”  They have crested and little blue penguins, rainforests rivers glaciers and sea, the Tasmin Sea. Wow let’s explore !?Xxx

Tuesday 16 Feb today last night in bed all you heard was the roaring of the sea and the wind and it was pitch black! It rained most of the evening and through the night. We set off in rain with grey clouds ( after finding the rest of NZ has 30c and sunshine).

It did eventually stop and we headed north on the glacier route. We stopped at ship creek and knights point view. From here you look down a hundred feet to a bay where there are fur seals and sea lions and penguins.

We then passed lake Moeraki and then the road goes inland up to lake Paringa Just after the Paringa river we stopped at a salmon farm for brunch. By now it was sunny and the tops of the mountains were visible.

From Haast Junction to Fox glacier it is 120 kms. We stopped on the way along the coastline. The beach is totally natural, grey sharp sand,shells, pebbles, and all along as far as the eye can see were tons of washed up roots and tree stumps and logs. No civilisation in sight. It must have been exactly like this when captain Cook reached the shores of New Zealand!

At Fox Glacier you see where the glacier ended in 1780s,much further along the road… then 1935, then it is a half hour walk to where it has receded to nowadays.

the sides of the valleys are a sheer vertical drop and a fast cold light grey rivers gushes through directly fed by the glacier.

I did walk so far but chickened out of the steep climb up. Grandad did it though!

n.

We have seen yet other picturesque parts to NewZealand today!

We had already enjoyed travelling along to Wanaka , Lake Wanaka and Lake Hawea on Friday, seeing the vineyards and beautiful lake scenery. This time we travelled straight through without stopping until we reached Makarora.

We stopped at the Blue Pools. It was a 30 minute walk through rainforest and the sand flies enjoyed biting me all round my ankles😩😩

The pools are reached by  2 wired suspension bridges that sway as the people walk across them! Then there were board walks through the forest too.

Young people were jumping off the bridges into the pools below…scary!

Next we travelled through a long steep awesome gorge  Makarora Gorge. It runs through Haast Pass. We crossed the Gates of Haast over Thunder Creek. mount Brewster towered hundreds of feet above. We both thought Haast Pass road was even better than the fjord land.

We are now in a rain forest by the Tasmin Sea, at Erewhon Beach Motel. The beach is just over the road through sand dunes and it’s pouring with rain and 18c so colder.

We are in a very isolated area and when Grandad asked the lady at the hotel where the nearest car wash is, she creased up with laughter…..about 80 miles away in 2 different directions!

The town of Haast is 2 miles away and has a couple of restaurants and takeaways so we will be ok for 4 nights here.

Hope everyone is well and ok love you all Xxxx

 

 

Today we explored the limestone valleys in this gold rush area. We found a town called St Bathans near the Blue Lake. Here there was a thriving town in the 1800s and gold was extracted from the hills and the lake area. As the plentiful gold depleted they used hydraulics to pump water into the rocks and then they panned the stones forced out. Eventually so little gold was being excavated they left the town.

It was so hot and people were swimming in the cold lake. There was a 50 minute walk all around the lake and so we set off, but the heat was too much and 20 minutes later we were back in the car with the air conditioning cooling down.

We have noticed some birds like lapwings but black and white with beige wings so we managed to take photo s of them today.

Just down the road from our hotel is a dammed up stream making a large lake in a conservation area. It has a gravel road down and we spent some time there this afternoon.

We both feel sunburnt tonight although we had factor 50 sunscreen on.

We move to Haast tomorrow to view 2 glaciers hopefully. If the roads aren’t to scary xxxxx

We are having really hot weather still and the sun is intense so factor 50 and sun hats!

Friday we travelled to Queenstown to see the lake. The town itself is packed with tourists and shops and shopping malls….not what we’ve been used to! We sat by the lake and then drove along the lake to the next lake.

It was a lovely drive and beautiful hills and valleys with lovely reflections in the lakes.

Today, Saturday we went down to Alexandra to see the town that is closest to us. It is small and quite busy. We then hit the highway to follow the old train line. We travelled along limestone escarpments with rocky outcrops and springs. We saw Hawks and birds like lapwngs but a different colour.

We stopped at Naseby. It is a heritage town with buildings from the mid 1800s. I took lots of photos but have just found out I had no card in my camera. Grr!!

There were gigantic fir cones outside one museum and some very old trees and a huge sequoia tree around a cricket green.

On the way back we saw fields with deer farming, sheep and cows.

i am drinking beer in an old wash house that’s been converted into a summer house at our hotel .It has very thick stone walls and is cool inside. VERY HOT outside this afternoon!

Tonight we are booked in the restaurant for a valentines dinner 😘

Missing you all very much xxxx

Hi still having problems with downloading my photos but will add yesterday’s when I can!

We travelled from Te Anau to here via Queenstown passing lakes with turquoise waters and steep gorges.

Now we are miles from nowhere on the top of limestone rocks. It’s a bit like the Yorkshire Moors but vaster and warmer. Loads of trees, sheep, and rocky out crops.

We are behind a restaurant/artists wine bar type place. There is an annex built with 3 apartments around a very English garden. It is lovely, we are here for 4 nights.

We drove through the main vine growing areas in South Island several miles along a huge sheltered valley.

 

Today we had a lazy day after 2 days of coach trips and boats down fjords.

We sat by the lake near to our motel and had an omelette and a coffee outside in the sunshine.Grandad got his hair cut and then we decided to explore the valley round Te Anua. There is a lovely picnic spot at Lake Gunn and we watched a trout jumping out of the water to catch the dragonflies. Here are some of the photos we took today . Tomorrow we move to Alexandra via Queenstown and from here we will find more lakes to explore. PS The sand flies are finding me very tasty! 😩

Hi my blog page is playing up and so I have not been able to write and send pictures for 2 nights, so I will try to send some today and they will be a mixture of what I’ve seen in fjordland. We have been to Doubtful Sound and Milford Sound on 2 separate days by coach and boat. We have really enjoyed these 2 days. The scenery is truly awesome

This is Te Anau Lake

Seals on the Tasmin Sea where Doubtful Sound meets the Tasmin Sea

Milford Sound a wonderful fjord breath taking