South Island (pt. 1), New Zealand
S O U T H∙I S L A N D
( P A R T ∙1 )
N E W ∙ Z e A L A N D
The best part of living out of a camper van? Choosing where we call home each night.
Setting up camp on the beach with our Apollo Campervan, Archie, was easily our favorite place to call home.
Tandem kayaking against the winds and ocean-current happened to be our true test of marriage.
Happy to report back we survived, but it wasn't easy (good thing Danny's strong enough to paddle for the both of us)!
Kayaking around Lake Abel Tasman was beautiful. There were lagoons and beaches and penguins and baby otters. We're looking forward to many more kayaking adventures in our future (preferably paddling with the wind next time).
Traveling south from Abel Tasman, we came across a small town that supposedly had a glow worm cave.
However, when we got to the caves, we were disappointed to see that they were blocked off from the public. You can only access if you do a tour with local company… good thing the hike was beautiful!
We made it to the west coast to check out Pancake Rocks and the blowhole. For it being a main tourist attraction, we were slightly disappointed, but the quick loop gave us a good excuse to stretch our legs from a long road trip. Also, the pancake stack at the snack stand across the street was the best decision we made all day!
If our days weren’t long enough, Danny had our days filled with sunrises and sunsets. And that meant waking up early to get to a trailhead and hike into a sunrise spot. Lake Matheson is supposed to have one of the nicest sunrises on the South Island and it did not disappoint.
Our road trip took us to glacier country next.
First, we visited the more popular Franz Josef Glacier. Unfortunately, the weather wasn't on our side and we had a long hike in the rain. This didn’t stop Danny from running around to get better views of the glacier terminal face.
Landing via helicopter on Fox Glacier and hiking through the crevasses and caves and drinking the fresh glacier water was like nothing else. It was a perfect day for us and got good practice with cramp-ons for our upcoming Patagonia treks!
We’ve had the most incredible time on the South Island and there’s still so much more to see. Keep following to hear all about the second part of our South Island road trip!