West Coast

The next day around noon, we drove towards Akaroa, a small town east of Christchurch. It took about an hour through an incredibly beautiful landscape.

The next morning, we headed back to Christchurch and continued back to the West Coast, this time a little further south, to Greymouth. From here, our trip down the West Coast started. The first destination: Franz Josef. On the way, we met travelers whose car got stuck during a break and could not get out without help. We tried to assist until other travelers stopped and called the fire department.

In Franz Josef, we visited the glacier of the same name. Unfortunately, it started raining heavily, so we had to skip another glacier and a lake walk. So we continued driving south. We drove until it got dark and then stopped by the roadside. Slowly, we realized that autumn was coming as the temperature dropped below 5 degrees Celsius at night. In the morning, we realized that we had stopped by a lake, surrounded by mountains with snow-covered peaks. We continued early in the morning. When we arrived in Wanaka, we made a detour to Austria. The whole city looked like a typical Austrian ski resort. In the afternoon, we reached Queenstown, a place overflowing with tourists.