Scenes from the West Coast
The West Coast of the South Island has miles of coastline along the wild Tasman Sea and mountain ranges galore, but it’s biggest claim to fame is that it is glacier country. Our days on the West Coast, like our trip to Milford Sound, were covered in fog. All the scenic drives were obscured and rain poured down for most of our time there. Thankfully, the clouds parted for one brief day, and that day coincided with our visit to the glaciers, allowing us to see what massive hulks of ice and snow they really are. New Zealand has not one, but two mammoth glaciers that are slowing advancing again away from the sea. You can climb on top of them on guided hikes, but we opted just to take the short unguided hikes to the terminal ice. Standing in front of the glaciers in the massive valleys they’ve carved out is a wild experience.
The rain obscured the snow capped peaks we were supposed to see in Jackson Bay, but the fish and chips at the Cray Pot was delicious!
Views of Mt. Cook and Mt. Tasman from Lake Matheson
Mt. Cook and Mt. Tasman again, along with some bovine friends.
Fox Glacier; our view from lunch. It's not every day that you get to eat lunch in view of a glacier.
Hiking up to the terminal of Franz Josef Glacier (the same one in the big picture, above).
The weather really put a damper on the rest of the West Coast north of the glaciers. I braved the rain in Hokitika to take a picture of this museum. It is housed in a building that was formerly a library donated by Andrew Carnegie.
Putting the grey in Greymouth.
Great pictures, bringing back old memories. I think I have the same picture of lake Matheson!
On last night’s episode of the ‘Amazing Race’ two contestants won a trip to Cook Islands & New Zealand for coming in first on one leg of the race ~ and here are you & Sean seeing some things they’ll see & you didn’t have to race at all ~ however, your photography of NZed is truly AMAZING!! Great job!
Of course, their trip will be paid for by the station… 🙂