- Chapter 14

After our short stay in Mount Cook National Park, we visited Lake Tekapo. The visit to the famous 'Church of the good Shepherd' was a must. In addition to many tourists, a group of teenagers played live music in the church. We listened to their songs and took the usual pictures outside before moving on.

The plan was to travel the West Coast of the South Island, which surprisingly worked out well this time. On the way, we stopped at the so-called Clay Cliffs, which were not actually on our itinerary, but on the main roads you are always pointed to interesting spots. Since we had enough time, we decided to take a quick look there. Maybe we should have checked the gas tank beforehand, which was already noticeable. In the end, we just made it to the cheapest gas station in the area.

After reaching the only road on the West Coast, we decided to spend the night at a DOC campground. At the beginning of our trip on the coast, we still had to deal with the notorious 'sandflies' known to everyone here. You can imagine them like small fruit flies, but they attack you and their bites last forever and itch extremely. We were so glad to be able to leave this place the next day and continue our route. However, the bites still remind us of this stay.

During the drive, we stopped at marked and interesting places. These included the 'Fantail Fall', the 'Thunder Creek Fall', the 'Roaring Billy Fall walk', and the 'Ship Creek'. As you can already see, there are three new waterfalls among them and all were worth admiring.

The next big destination for us, however, was the Franz Josef Glacier. Like many tourists here, we also planned to take the one-and-a-half-hour hike to the glacier. We parked in the specially designated parking lot and checked the DOC signs. It was stated there that the actual track was impassable due to flooding. The alternative was: 30 minutes return. So we set out to get as close as possible to the glacier. Luckily, the clouds decided to clear and we had the chance to catch a glimpse of the ice and take pictures, despite the closed path.

Afterwards, we decided to take it easy for the rest of the day and went to the beach. We even swam in the extremely cold sea. Across from our campsite was a 'Glow Worm Dell'. We visited it when it was dark. The sight enchanted everyone and we felt like we were in a different world. Glowworms were everywhere and we couldn't get enough of looking at them.

The following day, we had a long drive ahead of us. We visited the so-called 'Pancake Rocks'. These are rocks by the sea that look piled up like pancakes. Of course, there were also many tourists here, but it was bearable. From here, we continued our tour to check off the next point on our list: Abel Tasman National Park.