Family Ties

For the past two weeks we have been travelling with Craig’s parents, Lynne and Dave, showing them our favourite places at the top of the north island and then exploring the wild west coast. They are also in a motor home. They are doing a swap – the couple they are borrowing this motor home from are coming to Canada next year to borrow Lynne and Dave’s motor home.

The weather was glorious for the first week they were down on the south island, so we spent a few days lazing in Nelson and on a lovely beach called Kaiteriteri. It was around 25 degrees Celsius every day and we enjoyed relaxing in the sun and exploring the rocky shore around the beach by doing lots of hikes, which were more like rock climbing sessions.

Then the weather turned sour (aka rainy and cool). We stopped by Ivan and Canada’s farm (the one we helped out at in November) for a final visit. Lynne and Dave explored the farm and met all the animals, and got up close and personal with sheep for their Christmas card photo.

We have spent the last week exploring the west coast. We were warned to expect loads of rain (check) and loads of sandflies (check) – which are similar to black flies back home, and whose bites are super annoying and very itchy.

We drove as far north as you can go on the west coast, which involved driving over one of the hilliest and windiest passes yet. For approximately 20 km we were driving UP, but our 1985 campervan shone like the star she is and we made it. Once in Karamea we drove 16 km down a one-lane dirt road into Kahurangi National Park. There we explored some caves and hiked to some pretty limestone arches.

Two days ago we did our craziest hike yet with Lynne and Dave, which our hikers are still drying out from. In Punakaiki we embarked upon the Fox River Tourist Caves hike, where we were supposed to hike about an hour through the forest to some caves. Well, since the region had got last month’s rainfall in the past few days, the river was a-flowing and the six regularly-small river crossings were high and mighty and well past our knees. Once we had conquered the first two barefoot, everyone but Craig decided to suck it up and wear our hikers through the rest. Much to Craig’s dismay, since he was videotaping all the crossings, no one fell down.

The caves were well worth the wet feet. They were giant caverns with many stalagmites and stalactites to manoeuvre around. We were glad we had our torches (flashlights) since these were self-explore caves with chasms to step around. That kind of “tourist” activity is pretty dangerous, and it’s the kind of thing you just don’t see in Canada – especially since it is our favourite price, free.

On our way to the caves we picked up a hitchhiker, who gave us a “what a small world” moment when we found out she’s from St. Mary’s, Ontario, which is just north of London. Crazy!

We are now in Greymouth and still heading south. In a few days we will be near the Franz Josef and Fox Glaciers, where we plan to do a full-day guided glacier hike. We are pumped, especially since Andrea has never seen a glacier before. It should be pretty awesome!