A wicked West Coast cruise

I’m having a bit of a post-post-depression, so I am not in the mood for any long posts today

Not to worry, I’ll nevertheless give you a quick rundown of our wicked West Coast cruise.

We went looking for seals at Cape Foulwind, near Westport. There usually are around 20-200 fur seals there. I spotted neither fur nor seal. Ok, I’m exaggerating a bit, but there were no more than a couple of seals I could see.
Just click the photo on the left and let’s see how many you can spot!

After this disappointing experience I needed some comfort-food so we drove to the Punakaiki Pancake Rocks. They definitely sounded more tasty than they looked

Then we went onwards to Hokitika, a small and cosy beach town, where we spend the night at Birdsong Backpackers, a great place were John once more made a great home-cooked meal in the well stocked kitchen. That same evening we visited the small Glow-Worm dell. Although you could easily see all the glowworms with the naked eye, my camera apparently didn’t have the 20/20 vision in the dark

The piece the resistance at the West Coast was definitely our helicopter tour over both Franz Josef Glacier and Fox Glacier. Stunning views and to top it off, a snow landing on one of the glaciers. A real treat!

Of course John and I are living life on the edge here, so after we got on our helicopter and were airborne for about 5 minutes something went wrong. There was an indicator flashing on the control panel of the helicopter. Our pilot decided not to chance it and went back to base immediately. After a 20 minute wait we were able to board another chopper and this time all went well. I would recommend this tour to everyone! Especially the snow landing is a bizarre experience.

More magnificent photos on our wicked West Coast cruise:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/the_dude_in/sets/72157623281477051/

John’s blogpost on the wicked West:
http://www.oldenhuizing.com/2010/02/11/nz-west-coast/

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