We are currently in Greymouth, literally a town at the mount of the Grey River, a 1/3rd of the way down the west coast of New Zealand. This morning, we woke up in a campsite in the middle of the Abel Tasman National Park, at the top part of the South Island. We hiked into the park to find our rustic campsite with our own semi-private bay, where swam and watched the waterfowl for hours before dark and then again this morning. Cooking using a single propane burner was interesting, but the limited range of the menu was worth the view and the surroundings. Abel Tasman is an extremely beautiful place. We aren’t currently at an Internet terminal where we can aupload photos, but we will when we get a chance.
We lucked out and caught a water taxi back to our car right when we walked out to the beach at Anchorage and were able to get on the road earlier than expected, so we made it further than expected today. Tomorrow, we are heading up to see the Pancake Rocks, just north of Greymouth, and then we are heading down the coast to see the Fox and Franz Josef glaciers before getting in late at Wanaka, where we plan to spend two days before heading down to Te Anu and on to Milford Sound.
The most hilarious moment today was paying to go over the longest swinging bridge in New Zealand (about 150 meters) and then starting a hike only to have the heavens open up with rain and drench us both before we could find any kind of shelter. We hiked around the in the woods, drenched, emerging at some shelter right when the rain stopped. The beautiful scenery made us forget about being drenched, though, and the water didn’t ruin the digital camera, so all is well. We had fun putting on dry clothes in a parking lot of the side of the highway, though…