Archive for May, 2011

« Older Entries
Newer Entries »

Queen Charolett Sound Dr.

Saturday, May 21st, 2011

We got out of the campsite a bit late today as check out was at 10 and we didn’t leave till 1040, but no one said anything. Next we went back into Nelson to the library to use the internet again, I tried to upload some photos but I failed miserably. We didn’t have a lot to do as we had used it a few hours yesterday, and before you know it we were back on the road. Leaving Nelson is beautiful, traveling along the harbor.
About an hour later we turned onto the Queen Charlotte Dr, we had been traveling near a river for a long time, I cant remember the name of it. But it was a really neat turquoise color and very clear, you could always see the bottom. It emptied into the ocean but the sound stayed mostly the same color all the way here. The road is very curvy so there are tons of outlooks that you can see down to the water and the bays with mountains on both sides is just amazing. Lots of boats were anchored in the bays so it looked like a great little day sailing area. It really reminded me of sailing around north of Seattle, and the San Juan’s. It wasn’t a long drive and Grace tried to make it as long as possible by stopping at every single overlook turnoff. It actually got kinda funny by the end. Got some nice pictures…

In Picton we found a place for the night and played some settlers while we cooked and ate dinner. Not too exciting but lots of fun.

More later…

Tags: , , ,
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

Abel Tasman

Friday, May 20th, 2011

I woke up super early today, about 2am, after we went to bed at about 7pm. Not much to do once it gets dark. I tried to go back to bed but couldn’t. So I got out a book and started reading for about 3 hours when I woe up grace to see if she wanted to hike out this morning instead of waiting for low tide tonight. She did, so we packed up fast and started hiking, we knew we were going to be cutting it close on the two hours after low tide timing but figured it would be ok.

Let me just say this, walking across the estuary was a lot of fun in the afternoon, the ground was mostly warm and only the water was freezing, but at 7am the water is freezing as well as all the rocks and mud. I am not sure if my feet have ever been that cold before. Truly I had no feeling in my feet, I could see em but not feel the mud I was stepping in, but by that time we were almost across and there was no stopping for a break as we had no real way to warm up our feet. We got to the car and I got it started hoping to use the heater to warm us up. It blew cold air forever, before it started to warm up, but it eventually worked and our feet warmed up. We drove out of abel tasman and stopped for breakfast in a cute little beach town. By then the sun was up and it was a nice day, so all was good with the world.

After breakfast we headed to nelson, the drive was nice it followed the ocean for a bit. The drive wasn’t to long and we got to nelson reasonably early. We found a camp ground for $6 each so we set up camp, it was nice right down by a little stream, and there were only a few people there so no lines in the kitchen or anything. After we got set up and showered, we headed back into nelson to mail a package to graces brother, use the internet and get some groceries for dinner.

More later…

Tags: , , ,
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

West Coast drive

Wednesday, May 18th, 2011

It started raining when we were in Wanaka, and it didn’t stop for three days. It wasn’t just a little mist either it was a deluge. It really ruined a few stops for me, especially when I added that I was still sick on top of it. So I did see a glacier when we walked out towards Fox Glacier, but then it started to rain and it was HAILING on me before I made it back to the car. I was sick, cold and not a happy camper. We stayed at hotel in Fox hoping for better weather the next day… no joy still raining.
So we drove past Franz as it was raining so hard we knew we wouldn’t see anything. And on we went , we had to skip a lot of stops we had wanted to make, Lake Matheson and Lake Brunner as well.

Driving up the west coast highway is really nice even in the rain. It really looks a lot like PCH, all the jutting rocks and raging ocean. The clouds started to move away and we caught a few glimpses of blue sky and sunlight. We were planning on staying at Punakaiki rocks for the night hoping for good weather, but it wasn’t raining so we decided to not take any chances and go check out the rocks now. The pancake rocks were really neat, and it was the wrong time of day for the blowholes. They really only work for about an hour either side of high tide. We noticed that high tide the next day was at like 1030 so that was perfect for us, we would come back after checking out, and hopefully the good weather would hold.

When I got up it was sunny, blue skies not a cloud in sight. It was a bit misty but I think that is from the ocean and is pretty much the norm here. It was the best day weather wise in some time, so we happily went back to the Punakaiki rocks to see the blowholes. It was awesome; there are three main ones, as well as a big open area where you can see the water rush into the cave that leads to one of the blowholes. We watched the big blowhole for about half an hour, and we seen some great blows. The other two holes mostly just mist, but they go a lot more often. We seen one really massive one that got the observation area all wet so we figured that was a good time to go. Sunshine coupled with and interesting site make for a fantastic day.

More later…

Tags: , , ,
Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

« Older Entries
Newer Entries »