Current Mood: Bored & Tired

We decided that we would drive up the west coast of the South Island to take in it’s ‘beauty’.  So we left the glaciers and headed up towards Hokitiki, where there is apparently some really nice sights – it’s know for its supply of Jade which is one of New Zealands exclusive stones (apparently).  Trouble is that the weather was terrible, peeing down with rain and making everything seem really dull and drab.  In fact, the only reason we stopped here was to grab some supplies from the ‘New World’ Supermarket.

We decided to move on and see what else the west coast has to offer, this turned out to be not alot in the weather we had been granted.  We had low cloud meaning that any drive up into the mountains was slow and cumbersome, navigating some of the bendy roads was hard work and the views were non-existent.  So we just cracked on…  The Gates of Haast was pretty impressive, with a huge waterfall pushing water over giant boulders.  But that was truly about it.

We were looking forward to Arthurs Pass National Park, for some incredible walks…  Again waking up we were greeted with some terrible weather - walks were off the menu for the time being.  So again, we just cracked on, Em in the Cab the whole time keeping me company.  We stopped briefly at the ‘Chalet’ where we grabbed a lovely hot chocolate before jumping back into the van and moving on.  Eventually, we got to Christchurch, a bit of a dissapointment after not seeing anything of the West Coast, nor the Arthurs Pass Track.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 2nd, 2007 at 8:32 am and is filed under New Zealand. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.