Pictures from New Zealand

[Al Agnew]

Here are photos from the New Zealand part of our trip. If I had it to do over again, I would have spent more time in New Zealand (and done more fishing)....

The eastern side of the South Island has a lot of gently rolling to flat farm country on the Salisbury Plain, but it only takes an hour or so of driving from Christchurch to the mountains. This is along the highway approaching the mountains, which on the east side are fairly dry, with not much forest and lots of scrub But as you get into the mountains, driving up one of the river valleys, the weather and vegetation changes. The rivers are mostly glacially fed and at one time the glaciation was very extensive, so most of the rivers coming out of the mountains have huge gravel beds that cover the whole valley. We drove through the mountains to the western coast, where we stayed at a vacation rental by owner house in the tiny settlement of Okarito. The Tasman Sea there is beautiful, but cold and rough, not swimming water. The mountains come right down to the sea in most places on the west coast. This is hiking up one of the glacial valleys, approaching the Franz Josef Glacier. The glaciers remaining here come right down into rain forest, unique to this part of New Zealand. The lanscape, carved by glaciers, wet and wild, is almost otherworldly in places, which is what made it perfect for the setting for the Lord of the Rings movies. After spending a couple of days exploring the area, we drove down the coast and then back across to the dry side of the mountains, stopping at the South Island's biggest tourist town, Queensland, where we went on this nice hike high into the mountains to get away from the crowds. A lot of the Lord of the Rings was filmed around there, including some spots in the far mountain range in this photo from our hike. The landscapes just along the highways are spectacular, though; you don't have to get away from civilization to enjoy them. And some things are a little different...trundlers? More to come.

[Al Agnew]

We stayed at the pleasant town of Wanaka, and while I went fishing, the others took a helicopter ride up to land on one of the glaciers. This is one of the scenes from the ride. Meanwhile, I did a guided float on the Makaroa River. Very clear, very sterile looking water. Few fish, but big ones. The next day was another float on the Clutha River, which was a far bigger river with far more civilized scenery and far more fish, but most of them small. From there we drove to the tiny town of Manipouri on the lake of the same name, where we stayed the night before getting on a big boat to go down the lake to begin our overnight cruise on Doubtful Sound. The lake itself is spectacular. The Sound was simply amazing. Even at night, where we were anchored in a quiet cove.

More to come...

[timsfly]

Great pics, I enjoyed the South Island, few people, and lots of water.

[Al Agnew]

Dolphins swam along beside us on the cruise. After the cruise, we drove back across the island to the east coast, where we visited some wildlife areas...seeing little fairy penguins; this one was a fledgling still in one of their burrows. There were also seals, or is it sea lions...I don't care that much about seals so I didn't bother to figure which was which... But they were everywhere. Walking down a well-worn path to a beautiful beach, we came upon these guys right in the middle of the path. Along with a sign telling us not to bother them. I supposed they expected us to read the sign and go around, which we did. There were also nesting albatrosses. Here's a fluffy baby on the nest. To end the trip we drove back up the coast to Christchurch, seeing lots and lots of these critters (although this one was high in the mountains on one of our hikes) From Christchurch, we took a smaller jet back to Australia, where we got on the big jet and started the long flight home. Here I am taking advantage of some business class perks...the champagne was pretty good.

[ness]

Looks like awful pretty country there, Al. I'd love to do NZ someday.

[Guest]

Amazing. Thanks for sharing.

[stlfisher]

Looks incredible. Great pictures and summary.