South Island Part 1 - New Zealand

We were welcomed by beautiful New Zealand summer rain on the South Island. Through Nelson and all the associated hop plantations, past Lake Rotoroa and through the mining town of Reefton, we headed to the West Coast. There you can find the famous Pancake Rocks in Punakaiki and a seal colony in Westport.

From there, we continued to Franz Josef Glacier, where we treated ourselves to a heli-hike for Christmas. While there are glaciers and ice in Switzerland too, what makes it special for us is that the glacier reaches down to about 300 meters above sea level and is surrounded by rainforest.

The next stop was Wanaka. On the way there, we made a stop at the Blue Pools for a refreshing swim (brrrrrrr). In Wanaka, we woke up at 4 o'clock in the morning to watch the sunrise on the way to Roys Peak, which unfortunately hid behind the clouds. Even from the summit, we didn't see much of Wanaka or the lake, but we still had fun.

A highlight was the Clifden Limestone Caves. This is a publicly accessible cave system where you can crawl, climb, wade, and scramble through the caves for 1.5 hours. There were also glowworms to see in between.

Our current location (Curio Bay) also had the next highlight ready: two yellow-eyed penguins returning home in the evening after hunting. The yellow-eyed penguins live in southern New Zealand and there are only 5000 of them left.