Lots of people had told us that the South Island was their favourite part of New Zealand and we have to agree. Howevever as we have headed further south the weather has become progressively worse, with lots of really heavy rain and freezing cold nights. Therefore we have given up parking up overnight in laybys, and started staying at powered campervan sites with our little fan heater on full blast all night.
Our first stop was the Abel Tasman national park, where we spent a day walking along the coast through lots of tiny bays with golden sandy beaches, covered in little starfish, which backed onto coastal rainforest. It was beautiful, but the sight of so many deserted beaches made us wish that it was warm enough to have a swim; instead a torrential downpour came out of nowhere and soaked us to the skin.
Our first attempt to get to the northern tip of the south island was thwarted as the road through the mountains was blocked by a heavy snowfall. However we made it through on the second try and spent a day in the Golden Bay area, which is famous for the clearest freshwater springs in the world. At lunchtime we went to a salmon fishery on the Anatoki river where visitors are given a rod and bait, and invited to catch their own lunch. The staff then fillet and smoke your salmon for you while you wait. The river was teeming with fish, and the most difficult part was holding them still while we bopped them over the head hard enough to finish them off. Debbie's salmon refused to die, and kept coming back to life every time like Freddy Krueger at the end of Nightmare on Elm Street.
Next we headed down to the west coast and the bad weather seemed to follow us. We drove through high winds and driving rain to a place on the coast called Punakaiki where at high tide the waves are forced up into the air through 'blowholes' in the rock. We were told that that this spectacle is most impressive in foul weather, so for once the bad weather worked in our favour.
Then we contiued south until we reached the glaciers at Franz Josef and Fox. The weather suddenly improved, giving us a couple of perfectly clear days to see the glaciers in the sunshine. However for Graeme the view from the ground was not enough. The glacier looked even better while skydiving 12,000 feet above it.
That evening, after a few celebratory beers, we went on a slightly tipsy walk through the forest to a glow worm dell. Halfway around we realised we were being followed, and our suspicions were confirmed when we shone the torch directly into the eyes of a big fat possum. Possums are public enemy number one here and a few days ago we even found a cafe which sold possum pies, though the vast majority that we have seen have just been roadkill.
Yesterday we drove down the long and winding road to Milford Sound. Despite some snowfall the road was clear and we made it through, despite being ambushed by the Kea – cheeky New Zealand parrots who beg for food from every passing tourist. Milford Sound is a fjord on the South West coast of New Zealand and we took a boat trip along the whole length of it, past the mouth and out to sea. It was another miserable day but the torrential rain just added to the atmosphere, as the mountains seemed to rise dramatically out of the mist. We stayed overnight in a caravan park and in the middle of the night there was a storm and our van was shaking so much that we thought it was going to topple over in the night, or that we would wake up in Oz. Instead we woke up still at Milford Sound, albeit with a a few extra waterfalls that hadn't been there the night before.
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