Southern sweetnes, yeah the south island rocks

The travellers reach the southern lakes

Nothing like stone towers and waterfalls

Sunset at Lake Wanaka, where it got down to 0 degrees celsius

Natural hot springs after a 7 hour hike up towards the southern alps

The wild west coast


Here are some pictures from the last few weeks of travel on the south island.

http://picasaweb.google.com/JustusPB/BeyondTheApple#

Starting with the apples and going through amazing valleys along a river out to the west coast where the beaches were super rough. Driving past vineyards and orchards into the valley was great, as the trees are starting to change colour for autumn and the riverbed was lined with water, stones and trees. The drive along the west coast is also pretty impressive with scattered islands and rocks and some of the rougher water we’ve seen in NZ. The beach swimming wasn’t as nice as before, as you’ll see in a few pics where the waves are higher than I am, and just 10 feet away from the shore, thus being super strong and taking out our feet as we went it. The fact that the beaches were filled with rocks that were shot at our ankles by the waves didn’t help getting out too far, but made for an entertaining time.

Also entertaining on the west coast were the sandflies. For those who haven’t been to NZ before, they are worse than mosquitos. They look like little black flies, quite harmless until they land on you and bite, and when you smack them away, there’s blood coming out. Little bastards. Heaps of them too, surrounded a lot of the time down by the beach. For dinner, we’d walk around eating, trying not to get attacked. We’ve learned a few of the kiwi tricks to fighting them off, using an antiseptic mixed with baby oil which works well. Keeps them from biting, but they’re still around.

The glaciers are a huge draw after the pancake rocks for tourists. Pretty impressive, with the tallest mountain, Mt Cook and the southern alps behind them as a background. After checking out a small gold mining town, we hiked the overnight Copland Track. 7 hours of hiking up through small creeks and rivers, past tons of rocks and landfalls up to a hut surrounded by mountains and some natural hot springs. In the morning, we were greeted with views of snow capped mountains from the nearby river before heading back to the carpark and the sandflies.

From the west coast, we drove to the southern lakes, a land full of huge, blue, beautiful lakes. We’re in Wanaka right now, have been for 4 days. Such an amazing town, on what is regarded as the most beautiful lake in NZ. They’ve got an amazing brewery, a sweet toy museum, lots of hiking, the world’s largest two story maze and much more. Plus Uncle Mike’s BBQ, serving up some great American pork ribs. Today we hiked out to another glacier, driving around the lake up towards snow capped mountains, just doesn’t get any better than that.