The West Coast and the glaciers

We aren’t quite sure why anyone lives on the west coast of New Zealand. It is incredibly rainy, with sharp cold winds. And when the winds calm, the evil sandflies come out to eat you! There are some great sights to see, however, so we braved it for a few days on our way down to Queenstown.

We arrived at the 30 million-year-old “Pancake Rocks” in some pretty hostile weather. Their name is due to their stacked appearance, which formed from layers of compacted plants and coral. The result of our trip, of course, was that we were motivated to cook more pancakes in the campervan.

On the food and drink trail, Olly found his favorate NZ beer after tasting 7 different types in Monteiths Brewery. We also tried some award-winning whitebait patties from one of the road side farms – for around 6 weeks a year whitebait storm the rivers and estuaries of the west coast. Our visit was perfectly timed for them.

The glaciers of Franz Josef and Fox are the star attractions in the area, and we explored the latter. We walked up the valley floor and onto the glacier itself. The weather deteriorated which added to the extreme nature of the experience, but also gave us frozen hands and wet sandwiches at lunch time. The glacier was amazing though; massive ice gorges and sink holes coupled with rocks constantly falling onto the glacier surface made us humans seem very small indeed.

We felt very small!

As we know, Soph is an ice-axe expert

Guides have to cut steps as you make your route

Approach to Fox

Can you see the pancake layers?

Lots of beer, and very good chips

Whitebait on the grill

Typical west coast scenery