So we regrouped over the weekend (Renee worked & Dave did the laundry) and then packed the car again for a 5 night adventure down the west coast to Queenstown and Mildford Sound. The weather was pretty much as we expected. The forecast was so dodgy for a while we only confirmed our plans at 4pm and headed out. And then stopped the next morning at The Warehouse in Greymouth to buy some new gumboots (AKA rainboots, wellies etc) for the boys.
There are many rivers flowing out of the mountains and down to the sea on the west coast, and that means many bridges for both the highway and the railroad. So very cool to drive by the spontaneous waterfalls on the side of the road though due to the rain.
No hope of seeing the Frans Josef Glacier today. Much too foggy. But never fear, adventure is always near in NZ . . . and so are the sandflies (ugh!).
We are daredevils. There are no other words. We willingly took our van (& our children!) on this road . . . because every guide book says Gillespie's beach is a hidden treasure.
Turns out the road looks like this. If you've been following our blog,
you'll know that this is A) par for the course in NZ and B) in very good
shape and the warnings were dramatic and only put there to prevent
overseas tourists with rental motorhomes.
Xavier kept asking if we were in the rainforest and we decided to agree with him because I haven't seen trees like this anywhere else, along with the dense bush and fern undergrowth. It's not the amazon, but it's not half bad! LOL
Made it to the rocky beach (NOT recommended for swimming obviously) and Dave set to work on an inukshuk. There was a posted 3 hour return hike to see a seal colony. Not happening on a day like today considering how close we were to the seals less than 1 week earlier in Kaikoura.
Ha! Can you spot the Fox Glacier below?? There are mountain peaks behind those clouds - promise. Luckily we were staying the night in the local campground, waiting for the sunny weather the next day.
After dinner we headed up to check out a closer view of the glacier - beautiful blue water and ice mixed into the terminal river. 
We could only see the Fox Glacier from about 600m away as the track was blocked by flooded streams and we weren't willing to pay for a guided tour with the boys in tow. Loved the danger signs all around. (One day, when I run out of pretty photos to show you, I'll do a blog about all of the crazy signs we've seen, there's lots I haven't shown you!)
Watching chunks of ice float down the river was GREAT fun!
We now interrupt the flow of scenic photos to bring you the hilarity of boys chasing chickens after breakfast at the campground. (We were awakened rather early anyhow by the helicopters starting to take their passengers for scenic flights over the glaciers to Mount Cook and Mount Tasman from 7:30am from right behind our tent, though, so by this point I just really needed my coffee.)
Ah, where were we? Right, mountains! We had about a 7 hour drive to Queenstown so we needed to start with a good workout and Lake Matheson is one of the most photographed spots in the country, I think, so we couldn't miss it. The reflections of Mt. Cook and Mt. Tasman are stunning (even without the sun!) We had the boys jog / run the track (meant to take 1.5 hours and we finished in only 1 hour), which actually didn't help Dave's back after the first half hour of jarring.
Back on the road again, we experienced the most DIVERSE scenic one-day drive of my life. Mountains, coastal vistas, then crossing over the Southern Alps mountain range through the Haast Pass, driving alongside the southern lakes and into Queenstown was incredible.
This is one of my "keep your eyes on the road Dave" and you can look at the photos later shots (I'm also collecting these for a future post).
The weirdest change is going from rainforest and mountains to tussock grass! Hills covered in pom-poms is what it looks like to me. Very dry on the east side of the mountains because the majority of the rainfall is on the coast.
It was past 7pm when we arrived at camp to join Kim & Luke (Dave's sister and bro-in-law) who were camping for the week with Luke's family. Moke Lake is a rather remote DOC campground (no flush toilets) about 20 minutes outside of Queenstown in the hills. The usual sheep pastures abound, but there were several horse paddocks around the campground and there's a trail riding business here. Picture perfect rainbow to add to the evening!
Wait - what's that rolling around in the grass??? Yep, the boys had a good ol' wrestling match to expend their energy after 7 hours in the car. I'm pretty sure I had given them a soccer ball to play with, but this is what resulted: squeals and screams and boy fun. I let them be.
