West Coast South Island NZ

Well the rains came and it rained all the time we were driving through the Mt Aspiring Range of the Southern Alps. The rain forest was awesome even in the rain but we don't have pictures. There was the occasional clearing when we did capture the beauty.
We are leaving for Picton this am to catch the ferry to the north island tomorrow.



This was almost one of those moments.

A little blurry as taken with the video camera while driving. Love the ferns.

All the mountain sides had thick green vegetation.
It's a rain forest so I guess everything should be green!

There were single leaf ferns growing out of the rocks on the side of the road.

Bingo! A lovely sunset at Haast. Nice camping facility too.

 After walking to view Fox Glacier in the rain

Fox Glacier

Franz Josef Glacier
These glaciers are all in the Southern Alps where Mt Cook is THE Mountain.
Unable to view Mt Cook due to weather.

Hokitika, nice seaside town of 3000 overlooking the Tasman Sea.

Yes this the Tuatara, New Zealand's oldest living dinosaur.

This beach was within a 100 meters of our park at sunset on the Tasman. All of this was in Hokitika.

Glow worms are everywhere in this climate. Mostly people pay to see them. It was free here.
They are the larvae of the fungus fly and in the black of night, they glow. This is to attract food or mates, it you're a female.

Can you see the glow worms? Put the 3D's on.

.Dave feeding the Longfin eels. These are 85-120 years old. Young things. The food was raw meat on long tweezers.

The Pancake Rocks just outside Westport. It was an awesome National Park.

Can you see the "creatures" that they have found above in our photo?

The last bit of coastline on the west coast before we headed inland.

These are everywhere on the west coast.

And so are the possums. They call them the Kiwi speed  bumps as so many are hit on the roads at night. Possums are a menace here and threaten the flightless Kiwi bird too! Measures are underway to deplete their numbers. We did see the shy kiwi bird in captivity. No pictures were allowed as they are nocturnal and it was very dark. Flashes or any lights were not allowed.