riverECHO

We checked out of our organic studio at 10am on Saturday morning. After a quick tour of the Saturday morning crafts fair and farmer’s market in downtown Nelson, I dropped BJ off at the library to focus on work for a few more hours while I took a backpack full of dirty clothes to the laundry mat and browsed the crafts and fresh veggies a few more times. At 1pm we hopped in the car and drove south along the west coast to make our way towards the Queenstown/Wanaka region. Brad was able to find the local paragliding hill and Gretchen and he were going to spend the day flying and then head south as well. We hope to meet up with them in a couple of days.

Lonely Planet says that the west coast “will remind Californians of Big Sur.” The tiny highway, violent waves, sudden drop off to the ocean, and the beauty are all very similar to Cali’s coast. Just take away the hoards of people and the tall redwood forests and replace them with a coastal rainforest so dense that you couldn’t machete your way through. Add a few pastures here and there between the road and the ocean, something you would never see along either US coast, and place a few enormous snow capped mountain ranges just a few kilometers inland from the road. Oh, and throw a few glaciers and brilliant icy blue rivers in there as well. This is the New Zealand we have been waiting for. Don’t get me wrong, we have been thoroughly enjoying ourselves down here. But something about seeing mountains again, and big ones to say the least, has lit a fire under our eagerness to explore such stunning landscapes.

Saturday afternoon we stopped for a beer and some fish and chips at the Revingtons Hotel in Greymouth (Tim, we had a Montieth’s beer but the brewery itself was very closed) and then fell asleep to the sound of waves crashing at a small campground in a very small coastal town called Okarito. With many more hours to go on the road to Queenstown today, we briefly visited Franz Joseph and Fox Glaciers as well as Mount Aspiring National Park in hopes that we will return with family early next year.

We now find ourselves in Queenstown. It has become a Mecca for outdoor extreme sports as the signs for bungee jumping and rafting will tell you. But there is a reason it is so popular. It sits directly above the huge Lake Wakatipu and is surrounded by mountains on all sides. Although its busy-ness and bungee-craze may get old after a while, we find ourselves drawn to the area as we were both drawn to Jackson, Wyoming. Nothing like travelling across the Pacific to find ourselves in a place just like home.