Road Trip: Rocks & Water

 

We drove down to Lake Brunner to meet up with my parents and Aunt Val & Uncle Wayne who had just made it to NZ after a cruise around Australia in recent weeks.  We rented a holiday home and enjoyed the view!  This post has some lovely scenery shots, primarily of rocks and water with a few trees and birds thrown in.  Water of all kinds: lakes, the sea, waterfalls, rivers etc and rocks: flat ones, tall ones, pink ones . . . you get the picture!  

 

 

 The mist over the lake in the morning

 

The sunset at night

 

And the white herons on the shore before we left.

 

We headed inland for the day through Arthur`s Pass, which is the highest of the three mountain passes that cross the Southern  Alps in NZ.  This is one of Dave`s favourite places on earth.  His family often went hiking here together, especially around Easter time. 

 This road is a viaduct, a marvel of engineering because of the length of it, the S curve shape as well as the unstable ground surrounding it.  There`s a wonderful viewing spot at the top so everyone can stop and marvel at it.  :-) 

 

I think this part of the road is very cool though, when you drive underneath two different tunnels, one is to protect the road from rock slides and the other from a waterfall.  

 

 

There are also friendly reminders for hikers not to feed the Kea.  They are very curious and friendly mountain parrots, but are easily killed when they hang out on the roadway after being overfed by tourists, too heavy and slow. 

All of the waterways are very low throughout the country, it`s been a very dry summer here.  The waterfalls in the area are much more spectacular after some rain.

We headed up on a one hour return hike to the Devil`s Punchbowl Falls. 

 On our return journey we drove out to the west coast to take the scenic route (big surprise!) and something called the pancake rocks.  A little bit of farmland to cross through first . . .

Then you`re right on the coast! 

 There are so many campervans on the road in NZ, heaps of people come here on vacation and rent a motorhome or campers to travel around it.  There are some places  you can freedom camp (no charge for a campsite and no faciilities) or you can use department of conservation sites for about $6 per adult or holiday parks for about $40 - 60 per night.  The roads are challenging to drive though!

 Especially when you are distracted by views like this!

 These are Nikau palm trees.  Plentiful in this area and in a few other places around NZ, they are Dave`s favourite tree.  Unique! 

Time for a picnic lunch while the boys chase the weka.

 And these are the PANCAKE rocks, so cool!  The Punakaiki Rocks are limestone columns worn away by the pounding surf and there are several blowholes where the water splashes up violently at high tide.  No one knows why the rocks are in layers though.   But, yes, there is a little shop that opened here that serves pancakes, amongst the tourist displays, if you get into the spirit.  
 

( Don`t worry, we didn`t see any penguins, nor did we run over any - good driving Dave!) 

Turning inland once again near Westport, we followed the Buller River back towards Nelson.  Note how green the water is compared to the sea. 

 Pit stop at the longest swingbridge in the country, right across the Buller Gorge.  Cool little jetboat happening but at $90 per adult and $50 per child, we just took our chances crossing on foot. 

Yes, my mother was a little hesitant about the  bridge, but she made it across both times with relative ease, the second time though we had the kids go BEHIND her instead of in front of her . . . that made for a few less ``Be careful Xavier!`` and ``Hang on tight Jackson`` comments, but we still had the  ``Don`t jump Dave!`` comments!  Love you MOM, we had to get you to do one daring thing in NZ!  The day ended with ice cream:  Raspberry Lemonade Fizz, Caramel Fudge Swirl, Goody Goody Gumdrops and Boysenberry flavours!