Wednesday, 15 February 2012

Franz-Josef and Westport

We left Queenstown heading north towards Nelson, which is some 900km away, so we were going to stop at a couple of places along the west coast on the way.  This part of the trip - through vineyards, mountain and lake environments - was more about the journey than the destinations, as the west coast is very rural and remote.

Our first stop was the town of Franz-Josef, a base town for the Franz-Josef glacier, offering walking, bus and helicopter tours of the glacier and surrounding mountain ranges. 

Unfortunately, budget and time constraints set us against taking any such tours, but the town itself is a common stopping point for backpackers and other tourists of all kinds - so the place was very busy for its small size.  Our accommodation, like that in Milford Sound, had shared backpacker dorms and motel units, which gave it quite a good atmosphere.

We checked out the next morning and continued our drive stopping at Punakaiki, which with its pancake rocks and blow holes, was a spectacle of the forces of nature.  The pathways to the coast were carved out if the natural rainforest and sandstone terrain and the sea spray in the air tasted of that moment before you eat a mussel or oyster.

The remainder of our journey took us largely along the coast, alongside train tracks which often crossed our path, ran through roundabouts and at one point shared the same section of bridge!

We eventually arrived at the town of Westport, our stop for the night. There is not much for tourists in this town, but they do have a pretty fine microbrewery, which is open to the public to sample the ales which they brew.  We spent a pleasant afternoon tasting the ales and chatting to the brewery staff and other travellers that had found the place, before taking a 2 litre bottle of our favourite tipple back to our accommodation to have with dinner.

Tomorrow, we will strike out for Nelson and a return to civilisation.

TTFN

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