Nelson, Greymouth & Franz Joseph

Well here we are in Nelson, New Zealand, a beautiful small town on the north coast of the South Island. I really got lucky when it came to accommodations this time at The Arrow Rock Apartments was all you would ever need anywhere. The owners Mary and Pete had built this two story unit next to their house and put everything into it that any traveller would need. She had wine waiting for us and the fresh bread, coffee and so on. The view is spectacular from the balcony looking out into the harbour. Hard to go anywhere else when you have this.

Left our balcony in Nelson   Right Another beautiful sunset from our balcony

Left - harbour view      Right - Cigar, Wine, BBQ what could be better

We spent the day looking around Nelson and then headed out to catch a couple of wineries. On our way into Nelson the day before we had found a nice winery called Fromm. It was just a small winery that had been started by a Swiss gentleman who has a vineyard in Switzerland so the lady told us that 80% of their wine goes to distributors he has set up there. She recommended the Neudorf Winery on the other side of Nelson so that is where we decided to head first. This was a great recommendation as their wines were spectacular and the vineyard itself was a great setting. From there we headed off to one that Cheryl recommended from her research called Woollaston. It was good as well but set up as a art gallery and did not have the same feel. Needless to say they the wines were great and we had a great talk with the girl working there.

Left - Neudorf Winery     Right - Neudorf Signage

Left- Farmer Di      Right - Di at Woollaston Winery

Well after a day of trucking around the country side we headed back to the apartment as we had stopped at a grocery store and picked up fresh vegetables, steaks and salmon for a good BBQ. We are enjoying our trip but have come to the realization that you need more time in each area in order to see it all. Able Tailsman National park would have been great to go hiking at but we did not have the time.

Well the time came to leave on the 4th and we headed to Greymouth heading down the west coast . Well the drive was interesting driving through the mountains. It is about a 3 ½ hr drive from Nelson and has an equal part of valley driving and hairpin turns which Dianna really enjoyed. Mean while I felt like was driving in the Indy 500 as the steering wheel was going left ,right left again all the way up and down the mountain. Actually the drive was like a number of places we have been in the past such as the Yukon with the high hills and trees or like the Swiss Alps with the lush greenery and high hills. I am starting to wonder about this fact that there are more sheep in than people in this country because so far we have seen way more cows than sheep. The views were spectacular throughout the drive but there is not much other than farm land between places along the west coast.

Upon arrival in Grey mouth we quickly checked in and headed for a local hike that was suggested to us at Point Elizabeth. The surf was pounding in along the coast and we hiked through the flax and palms along the trail to the point overlooking the Talisman Sea. A little cloudy but still worth the hour hike.

Point Elizabeth Hike

There was not much in Greymouth that we had time to do other than general looking around so we headed the next morning to Franz Joseph. We stopped along the way into a small town called Hokitka which in a way was like a small Dawson City an old gold rush town where they still do some placer and sluicing along the mountain creeks coming out of the hills.

Upon arriving in Franz Joseph we wanted to get out and get some hiking done so we headed right to the Glacier. We did the hike to the base of the Glacier and one other. What a fantastic view, though it was not the first Glacier we have seen but we can now say that we have seen three Glaciers in three different countries. They are all amazing.

Franz Joseph glacier

We had a great meal at Alice May’s and then headed to the Glacier Hot Pools for a nice long soak. They were great , three different pools with temps of 36,38 & 40 degrees respectively. After spending about 2 hours in the pool we were a little wrinkled so we decided to head back to our room. You know the story about 6 degrees of separation well we were in the pools when two young girls came over and asked if we were from Canada. Turns out they are from Moncton originally and are now Doctors working in St.John NB and are on holidays for 6 weeks in New Zealand. Well we are heading to Wanaka tomorrow so we will keep you updated on what we see. Dianna is looking forward to the 6 hr mountain drive tomorrow. She will need a good shot of whiskey at the end of the day.