The West Coast is indeed the Best Coast

So I just got back from a whirlwind of a tour of the west coast of the South Island and let me tell you right here and now...you must see it too. It was very refreshing. I was really starting to get sick of this country and especially this city but I feel better now about staying here next year. I should warn you though that you better not expect much besides incredible scenery and rain because that's about it. Some places don't have electricity!

So we left ChCh a week ago today and went south to Dunedin. I had already been there but I wanted to go see Larnach Castle. We drove out to see it and found that it cost 18$ a person to tour it. I made the executive decision to nix it right there. So we wandered around Dunedin until parking wasn't free anymore then headed to a friend's house for dinner. It was really nice to be in a home home. We played Scrabble and had dinner and wine and sat by the fire. It was a good start.

Leaving Dunedin we headed west via Wanaka and then the Haast Pass to Haast (not really a town, more of a couple houses, a cafe, and a backpackers.) The trip was wild. We left rain and wind in Dunedin, then hit a snowstorm about 15 minutes outside of Dunedin, then the day cleared up to glorious sunshine. The Haast pass had so many incredible views along the way - waterfalls, rivers, mountains - I think I saw what heaven looks like at one point.

The third day we left Haast and started driving north. The plan was to see the glaciers then see how we feel. We made it to Fox Glacier and did a little walk around Lake Matheson which purportedly has some of the best views in NZ on a good day. We did a tour to the glacier lookout and then headed north to Franz Joseph Glacier. We did another walk and got quite close to the glacier. After lunch and coffee we got back on the road and headed to Hokitika.

Day four - we awoke to rain - Apocalypse style rain. We toured the town and met up with some friends who had just bought a cafe in town. We left Hokitika behind and kept going North. The plan was to get as far as we could so that we could take it easy the next day. We stopped at Punikaiki to see the famous Pancake Rocks and got wet. We kept driving to Buller Gorge and did a little hike across NZ's largest swing bridge and got wet. (Check out the pics of this bridge. It was capitol fun.) We kept driving against better judgment and made it all the way to Collingwood. The plan was to stay at a hostel I heard about called the Inn-let. Upon arrivel it was closed. We went back to Collingwood and couldn't find anything with a vacancy or that was still open. We found a holiday park and got a cabin there but on inspection it looked like it could have been from some sort of slasher film so we got our money back and drove back to Takaka. There were no vacancy signs everywhere. Finally I made Jess go and ask at one hotel. They gave us somebody's room who hadn't showed up. We took it without even asking how much. It was the nicest place we stayed in the whole trip. (Not to give the wrong idea because we found some incredible hostels at each stop. Check out Bird Song in Hokitika and Somerset House in Collingwood.) We got some succulent takeaways (Pumpkin and Spinach Burgers and fries - Amazing), got into bed, got drunk, and watched Extreme Home Makeover. It rained the entire day and apparently Takaka (where we stayed that night) got something like 42 cms of rain.

The next day we went back to Collingwood and found a hostel and booked a Farewell spit tour for the next day. With a day to kill we went to Wharariki Beach and found seal pups playing tag in a little creek. The beach was so windswept and violent. We didn't stay long. We went back to Pu Pu Springs (I didn't really want to go with a name like that) but it was NZ's largest freshwater spring. It was a peaceful stop. On the way back to the hostel we stopped at the Mussel Inn which is now my favourite bar in the world. They brew their own beer and make some great food. One of their beer's, Captain Cooker's Maunka Beer, is ranked as the best beer in NZ - the only beer to recieve 10 out of 10 in the rankings. It was a great wooden place with a huge fireplace and mulching toilets and cell phones staked to trees. The 10% pint of Monkey Puzzler pretty much ended the day.

We toured up to Farewell Spit at the tip of the South Island on the sixth day. The giant AWD bus took us out on the Spit and all the way down to the Lighthouse at the end. We saw all sorts of wildlife (alive and dead - there were seal carcasses and whale skeletons littering the beach.) It was like a desert. And it was a calm day - the wind was practically sandblasting the paint off the bus. The tour guide had some amazing stories about the wildlife and the lighthouse keepers and ship wrecks. They had found the world's largest intact specimen of a Giant Squid on the Spit last August - I was hoping we'd see another. After the tour we headed back to Nelson for the night. We found a hostel and bumped into some friends from ChCh. Dinner and drinks took up most of the night.

Yesterday we left Nelson and travelled back to ChCh. I was not looking forward to returning home to the constant greyness of this place. Low and behold it is windy, grey, and drizzly today.

It was an awesome trip. Only nine weeks till the next school break. Also, I was thinking while driving that I have less than 45 days in school and only 20 days teaching before I am a real teacher. Doesn't seem right somehow.