My 2014 Adventure: Travels to Singapore, Australia & New Zealand: Thursday, May 22

We left Wanaka early this morning and stopped nearby for breakfast at Lake Hawea. The drive north from here was beautiful because these two large lakes hug the road as you drive towards Fox and Franz Josef Glaciers. In the village of Franz Josef we went to the Kiwi Wildlife Center and got to see two seven-month-old kiwi birds in their darkened enclosure. These were rowi kiwi birds, the rarest of kiwi birds in New Zealand. Due to invasive predators like possums, rats, cats, dogs and stoats, kiwi numbers have declined dramatically for these nocturnal, flightless birds. There is a breeding program underway though, and with each kiwi bird couple laying one egg per year, the comeback is slow but steady. That night we stayed in an awesome holiday park called the Rainforest Resort with a 20 person hot tub (they boasted it was the biggest hot tub on the South Island) and excellent kitchen and shower facilities. We try to only do holiday parks once every three days, so these times our money is well spent are a rare treat.

I was incredibly excited at the prospect of glimpsing my first glacier, but the weather on the West Coast just would not cooperate. The day we tried to see Franz Josef it rained 150 milimeters. It rained this much and more the following four days, and as we drove north the rivers were overflowing their banks and rushing towards the sea. It was therefore disappointing when we reached the Hokitika Gorge, usually flowing with turquoise blue water, was muddy and brown due to the large amounts of rainfall. However, we still went over the swing bridge and pretended we were Indiana Jones at the end of Temple of Doom…we were not going to let this grey weather, heavy rain, and ridiculous wind get us down! We had a slightly scary (for me) experience after leaving the gorge, going down a 6 kilometer, gravel, windy road looking for a campground. When we finally reached the campground it was deserted as were all of the surrounding homes. It reminded me of that movie “The Happening” and I made Paul drive us to a more populated area to stay the night. We ended up staying at Lake Mahinapua, right off of the highway south of Hokitika. In the morning we were getting petrol at the station, and the attendant said it was lucky we were headed north because the road south was closed due to flooding. Remember how I said there’s only one road to get everywhere in New Zealand? Now everyone headed south was stuck for a while.

Along our drive north we stopped at Punakaiki to see Pancake Rocks and Blowholes. These layers of limestone were created by shells of sea creatures compacting over time by the movement of tectonic plates. Now the rocks are continually shaped by the ocean waves crashing into them. It was one of the cooler things we’ve seen in New Zealand thus far! We kept on truckin’ further north to find a campsite just at dusk at Lake Rotoroa, part of Nelson Lakes National Park. It was here that the four days of rain ended and we finally caught a tiny glimpse of blue skyJ I was very surprised when we woke up in the morning the different kinds of birds we heard, hundreds of birds singing. It was gorgeous and in hindsight I wish I would have used my camera to take a video to record their songs. We had breakfast by Lake Rotoroa then headed north to Motueka, the gateway to Abel Tasman National Park. Here we stopped at the iSITE to get information on kayaking and the inter-islander ferry for later this week. We booked a full day kayaking tour for the morning around the shore of the park, as well as our ferry ticket to take our obnoxious, green campervan across the water to the North Island on Thursday.