When will the rain finally stop?!

Our next destination was the rainy West Coast, one of the least populated regions of New Zealand. But who could be surprised with such modest weather conditions. Because this coastal strip borders directly on the New Zealand Alps, the clouds that came from the sea rained here, and we would also experience that. Barely had we arrived here, we were greeted by a cloudy sky and a few hours later it started to rain. Nevertheless, you could already imagine the beauty of this coast, because the sea was wilder here and impressive rocks often jutted into the water. Our first destination was Punakaiki, because there we would meet friends from Clive who kindly picked up Mom's Christmas cookies, which had not yet arrived at the time of our departure, from the post office and brought them to us. Overjoyed, I could finally hold Mama's long-awaited nougat crescents in my hand, 3 weeks after Christmas. The rain couldn't spoil my good mood, at least not yet. The next day we wanted to visit the Pancake Rocks, which unfortunately was not possible at first, because it rained heavily all morning... So we first visited a cave and then spent several hours in a cafe, waiting for the rain to stop. When it finally let up a bit, we seized our chance, ran to the rocks, took some pictures, and after 15 minutes we were drenched in the car again. We drove a bit further along the coast to an affordable 'campsite' near Hokitika (it was more like a sports club, where we were allowed to sleep in the parking lot for $5 per person), and there were several glowworm caves nearby that we wanted to visit at night. Since it was still raining and we hadn't been properly dry for 2 days, it took us a lot of effort to leave the car in the evening and crawl through a small hole in the roadside in the deepest darkness and pouring rain, without knowing exactly what was behind it. Fortunately, the cave turned out not to be a cave, but rather a ledge on whose wall hundreds of glowworms were shining. So we were rewarded for our effort, because it was a magical moment when we stood alone in the rain and watched the glowworms.

The next day we spent in the dry library, because there was always free Wi-Fi and electricity, because in the evening we wanted to visit the other glowworm cave, hoping to take some pictures without rain. And behold, we were lucky and it didn't rain. Unfortunately, this place was a bit more crowded with tourists, but I finally managed to take a few photos. The next morning we left the place to drive to the two most famous glaciers in New Zealand. First, we passed Franz Josef Glacier. Here we walked for about an hour to the viewpoint, and although the sight of such a glacier was quite impressive, it was equally shocking to see how much this glacier had retreated in the last few decades. Since we still had plenty of time, we also visited Fox Glacier, which was located in an even more beautiful landscape. In the evening, we visited Lake Matheson. This lake was known for its reflection of the Alps in good weather. And voila, we were lucky again, and after an hour of waiting, we actually caught a glimpse of Mt. Cook and Mt. Tasman in the last light of the day and even captured their reflection in the lake.

Although the West Coast had many beautiful and extraordinary things in store for us, we were quite happy to leave the rain behind and head to our next destinations, Lake Wanaka and Lake Wakatipu inland. On the way, we stopped at a snack bar that sold White Bait Burgers. White bait are tiny fish that are considered a specialty in New Zealand, so we finally wanted to try them too. And even though it looked a bit disgusting, it tasted surprisingly good.

In Wanaka, the weather unfortunately didn't get much better, so our desire to explore was limited. It was a beautiful little town in a great landscape, but similar to Queenstown, you needed a bit more money here to have a good time, especially in bad weather. So here we only looked at the tree in the water, but we didn't feel like hiking because of the rain and fog. So the next day we continued towards Queenstown. On the way, we visited Arrowtown, an old gold mining town. Everything here looked like during the gold rush era and was therefore a nice spot for our lunch break. The weather was finally better again, so we were looking forward to Queenstown. However, we couldn't really afford to stay overnight here, because even the cheapest campsite cost $20 per person and was also quite bad. That's why we only wanted to use the day to stroll through the city and play frisbee golf in the park, and in the evening, continue along the lake to Glenorchy to stay there. We found a pretty nice campsite there, and in the evening we went to the lake to fish and take photos. And so our time on the West Coast and the lakes came to an end, and we were already looking forward to our next destination: Milford Sound.