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We hit the westcoast next and headed north to some of the South Island's main tourist attractions, the Fox and Franz Joseph glaciers. Both were stunning and induced lots of talk using words not heard (and never expected to be heard) since GCSE Geography such as "terminal and lateral morraine"!! We were able to get up close and personal to the glacier faces and watch enormous chunks of ice fall into the rivers below which landed with a big echoing boom!

The west coast

Simon and Adele
2006-10-05 21:56:50

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We hit the westcoast next and headed north to some of the South Island's main tourist attractions, the Fox and Franz Joseph glaciers. Both were stunning and induced lots of talk using words not heard (and never expected to be heard) since GCSE Geography such as "terminal and lateral morraine"!! We were able to get up close and personal to the glacier faces and watch enormous chunks of ice fall into the rivers below which landed with a big echoing boom!

After the glaciers, and plenty more geography talk, we continued our drive further up the westcoast. The drive was beautiful and again we found ourselves stopping to take photos far too ofter. We stayed overnight at a couple of campsites next to inland lakes and visited the stunning Hokitika Gorge. Every morning we had to make a quick exit however as there were hundreds of biting sandflies in this part of the island looking for breakfast! We then continued north until we hit Karamea in the northwest, where, surprise surprise we did some more tramping, this time along the Heaphy Track.

Next, we doubled back on ourselves slightly and headed to the north coast and the Abel Tasman national park. This place was beautiful (beaches, jungle type greenary and more beaches) and we did a two day kayak/walking trip with an overnight stop on a houseboat. To our surprise there were very few tourists and we were able to claim our very own personal beaches in the park. We even found an island called "Adele Island" which of course we had to visit!

Abel Tasman was the last major stop in our tour of the South Island and on the 3rd Feb we took the ferry accross the Cook Straight to the North Island and on to the next part of our adventure ........ work!!