Pancake Rocks and West Coast Sunset

Hello to all. Another slightly old set of pics from the South Island tour a couple of months back. The pancake rocks were really cool. The mixed layers of sediment and limestone are carved into these fantastical shapes by the pounding Tasman Sea. As you can see, they can take on any number of crazy figures including the Where the Wild Things Are - type creatures in the guide posted at the site.

The beaches on the West Coast are not the pretty white or golden sand beaches elsewhere. More dark, rough and wild looking. Actually the whole coast is wild and rough looking, but it does have a really cool vibe to it. We scavenged the beach a bit for fugitive pieces of jade. Jade is a national symbol of NZ and sacred to the Maori culture. You can find it dredged up and deposited on the west coast like gifts from the sea. But you are not supposed to keep it and all should be turned in to the authorities as it is all by law owned by the Maori. Due to the foregoing legal conditions, we are unable to confirm or deny whether or not we saw any jade and whether we have any currently in our possession :)

Needless to say, the sunset was awesome! The sun slipped away into the pounding surf and sea water spraying in the whipping wind in a display of color unlike that which I have ever seen.

Cheers!

PS - really bummed we missed the snow back home :)

Kawarua River Bungy Jumping (Queenstown)

At least one more Queenstown blog . . . we'll catch up to the present soon enough we promise :)

These pics are of what is called the birthplace of bungy jumping (although I have not confirmed whether that is accurate). But as you can see it is a really cool looking place to bungy jump - if you're into that kindof thing. I watched several folks take the plunge and its got to be fun. You're rigged so that you stop the fall just in time to barely dip your face into the river. Lana and I did not indulge in this thrill.

The water all over the South Island is an unbelievable electric blue. Not quite Carolina blue, but really cool looking.

Tune in again soon

Fox Glacier

Our trip in Queenstown ended on December 12th at which time we made our way north via the western coastline of the south island. We had a few destinations we had to check out along our way and Fox Glacier was the first on our route. This was my first time seeing a glacier up close and it was so amazing. The staff and signs strongly suggested we not get too close but we didn't travel to the other side of the world to have to zoom in and take a photo now did we? Against all advise we walked to the foot of the glacier and even touched it before I demanded we head back immediately as I could see water falling of the glacier as it melted. Charles thought I was being a little over dramatic but since being back in Wellington we have heard of two tourist who got a little closer than recommended and actually died as part of the glacier collapsed... so I think we were pretty luck.

Kepler Track

The Kepler Track is another famous hike in the south island that we were able to do while staying in Queenstown. This one was an overnight camping trip that included what was supposed to be a 6 hour round trip hike to the top and back. I however decided my time was put to much better use by hiking about an hour and a half setting up camp and soaking up the rays next to the lake.

Charles, as usual, wanted to make it to the top and that is why you will notice just him in those scenic views from above. I think I have decided my favorite bit of vegetation is those crazy furn looking plants. They seem to take over in some places and look so amazing, I particularly love the things that poke out of the top, they just look too funny. Charles seems to prefer the trees with the Spanish moss.

As you may have also noticed from the panoramic photos, Charles is enjoying the new features and software of the camera he picked up before we left NC. You can really get a feel of things with views like these. Enjoy...

Glenorchy; Routeburn Track

Hello all, thanks for being patient with our posts. We still have limited access to the internet but should hopefully get hooked up this week at our new apartment. No one seems to be in any hurry here to get things done including the internet people.

The Routeburn track was one of our day hikes while in Queenstown. As you may have noticed from previous posts, Queenstown is on a lake and Glenorchy is the town located at the opposite side of the lake from the place we were staying so we decided to check it out. This was a fun day for us as you can see. If you look really hard at the waterfall picture you can see Charles, he was feeling a little "where's waldo" that day. For those of you who know Charles you can imagine he would take advantage of any opportunity to jump around rocks and see how high he can climb. This particular track didn't actually lead to the waterfall but someone, cough Charles, was determined to make their way to the water... and so we did.

I decided my time was better spent taking pictures of the monkey climbing along and to relax below and take in the scenery (wine may or may not have been involved I can't quite confirm).