West Coast, South Island NZ

9th – 24th April 2008, West Coast, South Island

If you have time, there's more photos at http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/findthebinghams/43QueenstownToAuckland

We’re still finding amazing geological stuff round every corner - beautiful sweeping Fox Glacier, regularly losing huge blocks of ice (which we heard, but just missed seeing), and Pancake Rocks at Punakaiki. These were intriguing and their formation is still inexplicable. We watched the churning and spouting sea, sending spray and foam through fascinating blowholes in the rock. All this from under an umbrella – the first rain we’ve had for 6 weeks.

The goldfields in Otago were first excavated in 1870 and we walked round the resulting landscape – blasted by water, treeless and bleak. The Chinese huts were equally bleak - how did people manage to survive the extreme weather and appalling conditions? Rick tried to boost our retirement funds by panning for gold – no luck, sadly.

We’re still taking great delight in walking around dense forests, convinced we’ll find ents or orcs. Instead, we’ve discovered many and varied fungi, some just beautiful.

Rick also helped me find Gollum....... or vice-versa.




We camped by the beautiful Lake Wanaka and spent 5 hours walking up and down Rocky Mountain, to see it all from above – well worth every painful step!





The West Coast of South Island is pretty wild and rugged with stunning scenery. Often deserted too.


The sunsets are fabulous (especially good with a glass of Marlborough wine)



Buller Gorge has the longest wibbly wobbley swing bridge in NZ – just manageable, so long as you aren’t followed by 10 teenage lads showing off to each other......

We ferried back to North Island on Rick’s birthday and had Yum Chow/Dim Sum. Further North, at Te Puai in the Thermal Reserve area, we listened to the excellent Maori singing and watched a Haka – muscular young men who certainly know how to intimidate their enemies (and impress their ladies!)

The mudpools (and smells!) were exciting and suitably gloopy, while the 30m geyser (Pohutu) was a fantastic sight, with hot steam vents and terraces of coloured mineral deposits. The whole area is a lunarscape, with the thermal power station looking appropriately HG Wellish.













Our last few days have been spent in a busy social whirl; all highly enjoyable, meeting up with lovely people and non-stop talking. Wagamamas with Janet, Fraser and Rory, Sue and Sandy and their new house developments, Nobu and Glen treated us to wonderful fish meal. Faye’s new penthouse apartment looks great fun to be doing up and even more fun to be living in. She showed us the new station in Aukland, behind the old Post Office – amazing place. Finally, we spent our last night in NZ with Diane and Reg (who own the van). Many thanks to them - we’ve thoroughly enjoyed having the use of it and ‘doing’ NZ in such comfort!

We’ve loved being in New Zealand. It’s a wonderful place and the list of Things To See Next Time is very long! In the meantime, the Travelling Binghams are off to visit the Oz Binghams in Sydney....