Running with the Ward's: punakaiki

On our last official day of the tour, we visited the pancake rocks in the morning which were so cool. I thought they looked like old ruins built into the cliffs over the ocean. We also enjoyed watching the blow holes along the route.

Posing in matching outfits

View of the pancake rocks

More pancakes

Pancakes up clase

We then traveled to Greymouth where we walked around, purchased some souvenirs and had lunch before boarding the bus to Arthurs Pass. We were meant to meet the TransAlpine train at Arthurs Pass but unfortunately the train was a few hours late. So we ended up waiting at the train station for quite some time. Once we finally boarded the train, we got four seats around a table and enjoyed the scenery and company along the route to Christchurch.

The group (including ipad) at a lookout south of Punakaiki

Another lookout right before Arthurs Pass

Wasting time waitin' on the train

Our train

Fun on the train

More fun....

We had a fun goodbye dinner with our group in Christchurch to cap off our journey!

Our crew left to right (Jenny and John Plant, Eric, L, M, D, J, and Linda)

The next morning we headed to the airport and traveled back to Auckland. We had a fun celebratory last night in New Zealand dinner at Depot for M&D! The food and atmosphere never disappoint! Let's not forget that this night also marked the first time my mom enjoyed a raw oyster.

Depot dinner

Today we traveled from Queenstown through Arrowtown and the Haast River Canyon to Fox Glacier. Arrowtown was a cute little town but we arrived so early, it was completely deserted!

Father and Daughter in deserted Arrowtown

We stopped for views over Lake Wanaka before stopping for a highlight of the day, the Haast River Safari jet boat ride. We sped and spun down the Haast River Canyon stopping often to take in the view. This video will give you a little taste of the excitement. New Zealand is famous for the invention of the jet boat and you can find these high speed adventures in most cities around the country.

Lake Wanaka

The water in Haast River was an unbelievable blue color. Our guide informed us this was due to the lack of rain this summer.

The Haast River Safari jet boat

Jet boat doing a spin

We ended the day with a quick view of our first glacier, the Fox glacier before spending a relaxing evening in the little town of Fox Glacier. We had a beautiful hotel with views over the mountains.

View from our room

The next morning we all set out to view the Franz Josef Glacier. M joined us to the first viewing platform before returning to town for some much needed shopping! J, D and I continued on the hike to final viewing platform. From there, we could see the glacier up close and see where it melted/merged into the river. We were not allowed to get too close or climb on the glacier as it has recently been unstable.

Lindsay with ice bridge in the background

View of the beginning of the Franz Josef Glacier....hard to see scale in this shot

The hiking crew

If you enlarge this one, you can see the helicopter in the bottom right of the part of the glacier lite by the sun

We stopped in Hokitika and J&I explored the beach while M&D visited the jade factory. Our tour ended the day in Punakaiki at my favorite hotel of the trip, the Punakaiki Resort right on the beach. We had a great dinner looking out over the ocean and then watched the sunset from the beach while our men skipped rocks in the surf. We slept with the windows open listening to the waves. It was at this hotel that we officially became known as "the 20 year old American couple". I'll take it.