The West Coast

Of course the weather the next day was lovely. We found the Cape Foulwind Walkway outside of Westport, and walked the 4 km out to a seal colony.

This guy was sunning himself something fierce.

On the drive south to Greymouth, we stopped to see the Pancake Rocks at Punakaiki National Park. Apparently no one is sure why the rocks here were formed in layers like this, but it makes for a cool view.

Once in Greymouth, we headed to the Monteith Brewing Company. This is one of the more prevalent beers here, sort of like Sam Adams in the USA. Just for variety, Gracyn is pictured with the tasting tray instead of Alan.

On Wednesday, November 26, we finished our drive down the West Coast. One of our stops was in Hopitika, where we checked out the Hopitika Gorge. Usually the water is more of a bright turquose color from the glacier melt, but it was cloudy for us from all the recent rain.

Next we visited Franz Josef Glacier, which is very famous. Despite the driving rain, many people made the walk with us to see the ice. I was struck by how far the glacier has receded since 2008. Still, it is one of the few so close to sea level.

The next day we also made the walk to Fox Glacier. The path was roped off before we got very close, due to heavy rainfall. The West Coast is the wettest part of New Zealand. Of course, that ice has to come from somewhere. Still, it's a bit demoralizing to be rained on and stopped from doing fun things.

For such popular tourist attractions, we were not impressed. Luckily enough, we would find ourselves hiking to a much more beautiful glacier from the town of Wanaka. We'll get to that.