New Zealand (Part I)

After Christmas, Emily and I popped over to New Zealand briefly for a helter-skelter 6 day road-trip of the South Island. So atlases at the ready and lets go...

Crossing the Canterbury Plains towards the hills

Arthur's Pass NP

Kea

The first day saw us head west out of Christchurch and up and over Arthur's Pass to the West Coast where we turned south spending the night at Franz Josef after walking to the base of the glacier there. Being summer there wasn't a great deal of snow about but recent heavy rains meant the rivers were full and spectacular. Arthur's Pass had actually been closed the day before due to flooding but no such problems for us with the sun well and truly out. Much of the West Coast is covered by thick native rain-forest which is wonderful to walk about in and is home to some of those elusive Kiwis.

Franz Josef Glacier

Temperate rain-forest by the Fox Glacier

On day 2 we continued south and up the Haast Pass into Otago where we stayed the night in Queenstown after crossing the Crown Ranges. Queenstown is the adventure sports centre of the world and so is full of bums and other nutters who enjoy putting their lives in danger for a thrill. It is also home to the Black-billed Gull which is endemic to New Zealand and, although fairly common there, it's apparently about the rarest gull in the world going by global numbers.

Queenstown

Black-billed Gull

New Zealand Scaup

After failing utterly to make my fortune in the Arrow River and ensuring a necessary return to work after our break, we travelled east to Dunedin where we saw in the New Year at GMT + 13 hours which means we were among the very first into 2011.

Panning for gold in Arrowtown