Up da West Coast

After a couple of nights in Queenstown we hitched down to Te Anau, the starting point for the Kepler Track, another of New Zealand's Great Walks. This walk took us through forest for the first two days. I don't mean to be disrespectful, and it is great that NZ still has so much forest, but it was pretty boring to walk through. Our views consisted of tree, tree, tree, river, tree, tree. Anyway, the third day made it all worth while as we climbed 1000m and emerged onto a ridge, giving us panoramic views. The weather was wild, wet and windy so we felt right at home and had a great day. The last hut was very close to some caves which were fun to explore and went surprisingly deep.

From Te Anau, Matt and I hitched back to Queenstown while Mike headed towards Milford for another tramp. I was just singing a little song about us getting picked up and taken to Queenstown after 29 minutes of waiting when our perfect lift arrived (well he narrowly missed 29 minutes but it was a close call). We stopped in Queenstown for one night before heading up the West coast. We stopped in a place called Fox, home of an amazing glacier. This glacier is nothing like the smooth ones you see in the European Alps as it moves at a rate ten times faster- up to 5 metres a day!

Whilst in Fox we got up at 5am and cycled to the nearby Lake Matheson to watch the sunrise. We were rewarded with stunning views of Mounts Cook and Tasman reflected in the Lake and surrounded by pink clouds. We have since arrived in Nelson, at the north of the South Island. The sun is shining and there is a beach so all is well.