Travelling Again!

Rainy days are good for one thing – finding a library to update my blog. We seem to be having too many rainy days recently, considering we are now in the driest region of New Zealand – Nelson.

Our adventures didn’t start too far from home at the beginning of November. We hiked the Mount Summers track, which took us up to the snow line in beautiful sunshine and gave gorgeous views of the southern alps.

Our travels really started when we headed over to the west coast, via Arthurs pass. Unfortunately, recent snow fall and rising temperatures meant avalanche risk prevented us from hiking some of the higher peaks in the pass. So to the beach we went!

 

Cheaky native Wekas bite toes and steal sandwiches – they are worse than seagull as they are so sneaky!!

 

We did an overnight tramp through amazing rainforests and then followed a rather deep river down through towering limestone gorge (wading up to my waste in places – so cold!!). We camped under one of the walls, the heat from our camp fire causing air to whistle through the crack in the rocks.

On the way back we ventured into a cave, 200m of stalactites in an amazing corridor, shining with glow worms.

 

 

Pancake rocks were a fantastic site. Sea water surged into a fountain through cracks in the layered limestone rocks. Tara terns were nesting on the surrounding rocks, avoiding the sea water showers.

Uncurling tree ferns fill the forests lining the mountains right down to the coast.

We headed north up the coast for some rock climbing and surfing, and enjoyed the wild rugged coastline. Eating fresh mussels for dinner and watching seal pups play in rock pools. We hiked part of the great heaphy walk that follows the coastline to the most remote part of New Zealand.

The Oparara arches were an amazing sight with rivers flowing through stalagtight laiden roofs. Some of the caves were full of glow worms and large cave spiders.

Heavy rain moved us on inland to see the Buller river in flood, while suspended like superman on a zip wire 10 m above the raging water! We crossed the longest swing bridge in more sedate style!

We headed round through Nelson lakes national park where gale forse winds stopped us climbing and flooded rivers hindered paul's fishing! So we carried on to Nelson and over a cloudy Takaka Hill to Golden Bay.

  

We explored the golden sandy beaches of Golden Bay and hiked into the bush to see the most spectacular stalagtight laden caves. We walked along the sand dunes at farewell spit, climbed some awesome limestone crags and biked into the mountains - making the most of the sunshine before the rain set it.