Westcoast....

Westport

From the sunny Golden Bay, we continued south along the wild West Coast (the rainiest and least populated region in New Zealand). After an adventurous drive with many mountains, rivers, and numerous single-lane bridges, we arrived in Westport (according to mysterious sources, the capital of the West Coast). The weather was awful (as much rain as we haven't seen in a long time, but according to the campsite owner, it was the best day of summer!!) and the town was not much bigger than Welzheim. We were a bit disappointed. In general, the cities here are not usually the highlight, but no one comes to New Zealand for a city trip. So we tried to get out of the rain hole as quickly as possible and continued south.

One of our other stops was a seal colony with many cute seal pups.

Next, we came across the famous Pancake Rocks (Bonus knowledge 2431: Even scientists can't exactly explain how these rock formations were formed). Although it was pouring rain here too.

Greymouth

Then came Greymouth - a ray of sunshine in the truest sense. The first time we saw the sun in what felt like an eternity and extremely luxurious campground showers (felt like a three-star hotel at least). Our next stop was Hokitika Gorge. The river is known for its turquoise color (Bonus knowledge 3000: this color is created by a mixture of rock dust, melted water, and river water). But for us, the color was more of a light gray due to the heavy rain of the past few days.

Franz Josef Glacier

Since New Zealand offers pretty much everything in terms of landscape, there were also glaciers to see. One well-known glacier is called Franz Josef (I don't have at hand right now why it's called that). It looked pretty good with the blue ice. In Franz Josef (yes, the village is also called that), there was also the famous Mirror Lake (actually Lake Matheson). This lake has very dark water, and in perfect weather (which we didn't have), and with calm water, there is a perfect reflection of the mountain range of the Southern Alps, including Mt Cook and Mt Tasman, the two highest mountains in New Zealand.