where left is right: a year in aotearoa/new zealand: Impromptu Road Trip

This past week Nick and I were lucky to have found ourselves with time off from work and decided to go on a little road trip adventure. We packed a lot into our 8 day adventure, here are some of the highlights.

BOULDERING AT ELEPHANT ROCKS

These rocks are located in a farmer's paddock. This is Nick making his way through the crack between these rock.

Can you see the elephant?

THE TRANZ ALPINE TRAIN

With a fresh dusting of snow on the mountains we decided to take a train trip from the east to the west coast across the Southern Alps. The trip takes about 4.5 hours one way, so we decided to stay on the west coast for a night in the town of Greymouth.

The train stop in Darfield

A cozy ride

A coal train passes by

Winter has arrived!

We made a brief stop at Arthur's Pass.

Diminishing morning fog reveals more snowy peaks and frosty land.


The beach in Greymouth.

MARLBOROUGH

Next, we headed north along the east cost in search of a good trail to hike and some good wine to taste! We hiked along a portion of the Nydia Track and then did some wine tasting in Blenheim.

View from Picton looking out to the Marlborough Sounds.

The start of the Nydia Track

View from the tent

A Weka visited us at our campsite

Another view from the Nydia Track

Rata

Fantail - these birds are not shy of people, this one accompanied us along the trail for a while.

Ponga trees!

Winter road trip camping means it gets dark early, so we got creative experimenting with the night setting on the camera.

The rain found us as we left Marlborough Sounds

THE NORTHEAST COAST

We had beautiful weather as we headed south along the northeast coast.

Seals bask in the winter sunshine

We found this amazing little walk along a river where hundreds of baby seals make their way up river to socialize and play while their mothers are out fishing. There were many swimming in the river and some lounging about in the forest.