08.12.2019 Plan change for staying safe

It's raining. Still. But it's supposed to stop tonight.
The West Coast, you must not miss it, it's really beautiful, everyone tells us.

Update? As mentioned above, it's still raining. We've escaped to Twizel to avoid the rain a bit, but the West Coast is in a state of emergency due to the big storm. We've attached some pictures from a news website so you can get an idea of what's going on. Of course, you can also just google it.

The current situation is that no one can go from Wanaka to the West Coast, and no one can leave there either, the road is completely closed. In one picture you can see a road marked in black, the only road along the West Coast, and it's marked in black because it's closed.
It's said to be very dangerous there right now and we think the pictures speak for themselves.

Alternatives?
- Skip the West Coast or
- Wait

We've been waiting for over a week already and to be honest, we're tired of waiting. It's nice to find a 'rest' somewhere, but since we started traveling in early October, we've often found rest. Stayed here or there for a week or longer and now we just want to continue!

The weather is supposed to be good next week, which of course doesn't mean that the road on the West Coast will be in good condition again, and it also doesn't mean that the masses of water there will just disappear into thin air. In the last week, there were daily rainfall amounts of 100-300 liters per square meter.

We'll drive to Wanaka today, hike Roy's Peak tomorrow, and unfortunately skip a large part of the West Coast. That's at least the plan, because there is currently no way from below the South Island to above the South Island.

You might think that waiting for another week doesn't matter, but this will have consequences. Our plan was to be on the North Island for Christmas and take the ferry there in mid-December, as it is partially booked out from shortly before Christmas until mid-January. We really didn't want to stay on the South Island until mid-January.

Why not? Yeah, why not actually. You can do it, but you don't have to.

We would like to start working again in March and then until June or early July, which is quite flexible and can be changed, but that's our plan and we would also like to take our time on the North Island. So it would be annoying if we could only come over in mid-January.

We wish you a nice 2nd Advent and keep you updated :-).

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