Further Travels on the South Island - NZ - PICS!!

Joe and our trusty little Toyota. We paid nz$3000 (about us$2100) in December and will sell it in a couple of weeks. This is two days ago on the west coast.

This is us on the ferry from Wellington on the North Island with the South Island in the background (on the 4th).

Today is Thursday the 10th and I am now illegally in NZ as my visitor visa expired two days ago. I applied for an extension four weeks ago and called the Immigration Service and they said it was still pending as it had not been reviewed by an Officer yet. He said not to worry as they "typically" do not prosecute in these circumstances. That made me feel MUCH better. I just have to wait. They have my passport though so I hope it gets back to the marina by the time we need to leave for Fiji.

The weather has been very cool and crisp but sunny for us vagabonds. It rained hard last night after blowing hard and getting even chillier yesterday as a front passed over the South Island but today is partly cloudy and expected to be fine. It feels just like a fall day in Colorado in the mountains and it looks like it too as we are surrounded by steep mountains here in Wanaka. It reminds both of us of Aspen before it went nuts. We will have stayed here two nights and leaving today for Dunedin on the east coast of the island.

The last few days we went from Nelson down to Westport then to the twin glaciers at Franz Josef and Fox. The glaciers are spectacular and supposedly the only ones in the world that come down this close to the coast. That may be an unsupported claim though as the ones in Alaska drop off in the ocean. The glaciers and the country are magnificient though. The nickname of the mountains are the Alps of NZ. I will post a couple of pics below.

This is our Water Taxi that took us from the entrance to the Abel Tasman National Park to a drop off point on the coast. See the previous post for more details.

Below is me on a narrow swinging suspension bridge in the park. It crosses over a creek far below. Cindy did not like this bridge.

A view looking north from the trail in the park. The land in the distance is the North Island and the water is Cook Strait.

The rocks in this pic are along the wild west coast looking out to the Tasman Sea which is between NZ and Australia. This is a nice day with mild seas.

Look closely and some of the lumps in this pic are not rocks but seals from a fur seal colony on the west coast. Don't forget that you can double click on any photo and it will enlarge. The smaller seals here are about 4 months old and still nursing from their moms. The bulls are off at sea.

The Franz Josef Glacier: We walked pass the warning signs near where I took this pic so we could get closer. There are guided trips that take you on to the glacier but they are expensive and make you wear boots and equipment that they provide so we skipped. The views and feeling you get from the area is awesome. We got to very close to the "terminal" of the glacier which is it melting face at the bottom. The glaciers are steep and move up to 5 meters a day which is over 10 times what the glaciers in the European Alps do.

Park rangers told us not to go pass this sign but I did any way. It was not that dangerous but could be in a rain situation. The glacier is just on the other side of the big rock behind us. Here is what the glacier looked closer up. If you blow up the pic you might be able to see some red dots to the left and up from the melt hole at the bottom. These are guided climbers going up the face.

Mt. Cook fromt the west coast. It is NZ's highest peak and is snow bound year round. Gorgeous scenery!!

Sheep block on the way across the "Alps" to Wanaka where we are now.