Sublime South Island

You catch a ferry between the North and South Island, and we’d have to say it was definitely a lot more scenic than the Dover crossing! It was also the first time we’ve shared the car deck with a train.   Once you get over the Cook Strait you are sailing through the bright blue waters of Queen Charlotte Sound surrounded by wide steep green forests on either side. Once again the weather was showing New Zealand at it’s best. Disembarking at Picton we drove to the Abel Tasman National Park via Marlborough wine country. And Ben & I can now personally recommend the Stoneleigh Sauvignon Blanc!

The Abel Tasman National Park has a world-renowned walking track snaking around the stunning coastline where the forest meets the sea in small golden sandy inlets.   Here we got a sightseeing ferry up the coastline past Adele Island (I know a whole island named after me!) and sweet nursing seal pups. We were dropped off at Appletree Bay to take a 7km ‘tramp’ to the beach at Anchorage where we met the ferry to go back to Kaiteriteri, the beach village where we were staying.   On the trip we met the Melis, a lovely French family currently living on the island of New Caledonia in the pacific. The kids bonded over practising their language skills and an ice-cream – a great combination – while we chatted about living abroad and travelling (of course!). Kaiteriteri was also the spot where I impressed my family with my skill at crazy golf – winning by a huge margin – is their no end to my hidden talents?

Meli Family

After the Abel Tasman, it’s a drive south along the famously scenic West Coast. En-route we met up with our fellow travelling family the Dishmans for lunch in Westport, and with full bellies we drove down to Punakaiki and The Pancake Rocks, a geological wonder of thinly layered rocks stacks (or pancakes). Sound boring? Well it was actually fascinating and like everything in New Zealand has been thoughtfully managed by the Department of Conservation to make sure it is both protected but also easily accessible to everyone. The road trip down here is incredible and is described by the Lonely Planet guidebook as “staggeringly beautiful…lush green forest alongside a series of bays dramatically sculpted by relentless ocean fury” which pretty much says it all!

Ollie’s troll sculpture

The Scottish settled this area much to Cam’s delight

Hokitika, another small beach town, was our overnight stop. Here the motel owner Adele (who knew there were so many of us in New Zealand!) recommended that we stop to see the Driftwood Beach Sculpture Competition and they were extraordinary. Both Ollie and Cameron were inspired enough to create their own masterpieces to add to the 100+ already on the beach. Unfortunately, a dramatic weather change meant that our drive down to Glacier country, the home of the Franz Joseph and Fox Glaciers, via the scenic Haast Pass, was through horrendous driving rain!

Hiking by Helicopter on Fox Glacier by Cameron –

The most awesome day in New Zealand was me and Dad going heli-hiking on Fox Glacier. The day we had booked to go the rain was so bad that the trip was cancelled so we had to wait till the next day and hope that the weather cleared which luckily it did.  We had to gear up with extra thick layers and proper big boots then hop into a mini-van to get driven to the Helicopter landing point. When we got there I was so excited I couldn’t wait. I sprinted to the helicopter with six other people then we took off to see the most amazing views of the mountains and the 13km long Fox Glacier. And because the door of the chopper were glass it felt like I was actually flying myself. We landed on the only flat ice on the glacier, and as the helicopter took off our groups fitted crampons onto our boots and headed out on the ice. I had so much fun as we went down a very narrow ice tunnel with an inch of water flowing through it, and climbed along narrow ice ledges and watched a thundering rockfall from the cliffs above.   We also hiked to a waterfall to taste the refreshing but freezing cold glacier water, but I didn’t like the taste very much.  We had to crouch down to protect our faces from the flying ice pellets when the helicopter landed to pick us back up. We then had a ride back to Mum & Oliver to tell them all about our great adventure.