Heading up the West Coast 🧭

We headed north stopping at the Blue Pools (can confirm, very blue) and a lovely beach lookout, all very pretty of course. We had to get our timings right as there were roadworks just up from Haast where they only let traffic through on the hour,  time it wrong and you've got at 59 minute wait on your hands. We were a little early but it was lunch time so made a sandwich while we waited. 

Time is flying by so we need to get shuffle on, so we drove all the way up to Fox Glacier (the town) and got a walk in around Lake Matheson. It's well known for it's views, and therefore reflections of Mt Cook and Mt Tasman. We were not disappointed, it was beautifully still. As the sun was setting we cooked some noodles in the carpark then headed off on glowworm walk near the town. To our delight there were loads, once you turned your head torch off they were everywhere, like a clear night sky. 

The next day we started with a walk to Fox Glacier lookout. You can't get as close as you used to (the road was closed indefinitely in 2019 after a huge landslip), but it's a lovely forest walk which has signs that tell you where the glacier terminal was in the past. All the while we were being spoilt with sunshine and beautiful blue skies. 

Carrying on north towards Franz Josef glacier, we stopped and did a short walk up Canavans Knob to get some views then went to the official lookout. This is again different, you used to be able walk along the edge of the Waiho River but in 2019 the river dramatically changed course, taking out the walking track. I wanted to recreate the photo below, which I manged but the 'cardboard' cut out Ranger was in a different location! You can tell it's the quiet season when we're at places like this, we barely saw anyone all day, we probably saw more helicopters than people. 

Our camp for the night was another DOC campsite next to Lake Mapourika. Not long after we arrived an Aussie couple approached offering cooked meats as they'd done too much on their BBQ. We willingly took the food, we hardly buy or eat meat out here due to cost and ease of cooking, and we chatted to them for a while which was nice. 

We continued being lucky with the weather so basically spent the next day sitting in the sun in different places.  We sat and ate brekkie in the sun and when we eventually left the campsite we drove on up to Hokitika, and sat there in the sun. We looked around the town and then went to a campsite with WiFi, we really needed to decide when we're going to the north island and where we want to have been on the south before we do, so we enjoyed some planning in the sunshine. 

Whether to go up to Arthur's Pass or not was a decision which we'd had to make as it was going to be our next stop. The next day, with the weather still clear and dry we set off back into the mountains. We did a walk up to Bealey chasm, which was a little trickier than expected, I returned with one wet foot, but worth it for the glorious views. 

Next we did a short walk up to the Devil's Punchbowl waterfall, which is a popular walk to a pretty impressive waterfall. We then settled in for a chilly night in Arthur's Pass Village, the hot water bottle was put to good use and it was harder than usual to get out the van on the frosty morning. 

Next we'll head back to the west coast and carry on north as far as we can. I read in the Lonely Planet guide about some cool caves in the Oparara Valley so I think we'll head there next, we need to stop just retracing our steps from 8 years ago! 

Lots of love, 

Lisa and Matt 💕