The West Coast of the South Island

One of our guides from the Antarctica tour - a New Zealander who grew up on the West Coast of the South Island - told us that the Fjordland Crested Penguins (Dickschnabelpinguine) living here could be seen not only from July to November (breeding), but also from mid-February to mid-March (moulting)... actually, we wanted to skip the West Coast completely in favor of other points, but this information fascinated us so much (we have never seen this type of penguin) that the West Coast quickly made it back into the program.

From Picton (ferry port) and Blenheim (first overnight destination), we drove straight to the West Coast. Nelson is still in the east, but on the way, so we took care of it. Cape Foulwind near Westport is home to a fur seal colony, which was our first destination. Unfortunately, only a few seals were at home. But on the nearby beach, we were able to dip our feet in the water without them freezing off.

We passed the Pancake Rocks and took a short river walk into the hinterland, visited the Hokitika Gorge with its turquoise river, and stopped at the glaciers (Franz Josef Glacier, Fox Glacier), which looked very sad compared to our first visit 26 years ago. It was raining here while we had a lot of sun on the rest of the West Coast.

Now we were already in the penguins' area, but neither at Monro Beach nor in Jackson Bay (these are the two hot spots we were told about) did a penguin welcome us. We finally left the West Coast towards Wanaka/Queenstown/Te Anau via the Haast Pass - the southernmost way to cross the Southern Alps, where we want to do some more hiking.

All in all, we really liked the West Coast (except for the missing penguins), we didn't remember it being so beautiful! (However, not as full of sandflies [sandflies are small nasty mosquitoes whose bites are actually painful]).