Anna, Carly and I headed out to the West Coast of the Southern Island early Tuesday morning. We arrived at our couch surfing house around 2pm where we met Ant and Suzi. The couple lives and works on a Dairy farm with about 380 cows. It was calving season so they were very busy. They were extremely welcoming and friendly. We had two bedrooms to sleep in and on the second night Suzi made us an amazing dinner. Its incredible that couch surfing is free and that the people you stay with really do expect nothing. The website recommends that you do the dishes while you are there and maybe send a postcard from the next place you go, but nothing else is really expected! It was such an incredible experience and I definitely want to host couch surfers back in the states later in my life.
That afternoon we went to Hokitika. It is a small town that is known for its Jade. It was a horribly rainy day so we walked around the very small town for half an hour and then spent a few minutes walking on the beach in hopes of finding some jade for ourselves. (Fun fact: there isn’t a single traffic light on the entire west coast of the southern island.) We did not have much success and ended up going back to Ant and Suzi’s and watching a couple movies and making dinner. The next morning we headed out early to go to Fox and Franz Joseph Glacier. It was a beautiful 2 hour drive down the coast. On the drive down we stopped at a scenic overlook. Anna got out of the car to take some pictures and left her door open while I tried to find my camera in the backseat. Before I know it a bird is sitting on the open door trying to eat the rubber on the door and come in to the car to stand on the steering wheel. It was hilarious and kind of scary at the same time. Anna tried countless methods to get the Kea bird off of the door but she eventually had to climb in the other side of the car. We really weren’t sure if they were dangerous or just annoying and friendly. It wasn’t until we were going about 40kmh that the bird finally flew off the top of the car. I now understand why they are considered such annoying animals!
The glacier hike we had hoped to do was closed due to recent rainfall but the view of the glacier was still incredible. We also did a hike around Lake Matheson, which gave us a beautiful reflection of Mt. Tasman and Mt. Cook. On the way home we stopped at a beach to watch the sunset. It was a lovely day and we arrived back to our couch surfing home just in time for dinner. The next morning we saw The Hokitika Gorge, helped feed the calves and then headed up to Punakaiki. It is a very small town with a population of 38 people. It is famous for its pancake rocks (formed from the ocean slowly deteriorating the limestone rocks) and blowholes. Both were really cool to see. We did a very small hike to the beach, which was also an incredible view. After that Anna and I dropped Carly off in Greymouth with her boyfriend and we headed back through Arthur’s pass to Methven where we spent the night in a hostel before snowboarding Mt. Hutt the next day.
Lake Matheson Reflection
The couch surfing house!
The calves
Anna, Carly and Trey in front of the Pancake Rocks
More pancake rocks
Snow boarding was a funny experience. It was very strange to me that the mountain did not have a single tree! So although there were so called ‘trails’ going down, you could pretty much ski wherever you liked. It was the perfect weather and we enjoyed amazing views. The mountain was pretty small compared to New England skiing (and very small for Anna compared to the Colorado skiing she is used to.) It was really cool to be able to say we skied in New Zealand and I’m so glad that we went!
While on our West Coast journey we discovered that school is cancelled for yet another week. After arriving back to ChCh form the mountain we immediately began planning another trip. Anna, Carly, Drew, Graham and I are taking flights up to Wellington today and staying until Friday. It should be another fun week of Spring Break!
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