Here is the last post from our little trip a couple weeks ago. We had a great time. Coming back we started out near Cape Foulwind… one of my favorite names of locations I know of. We saw some seals, sorry no pics…. we might play a little game with that in a later post, some fantastic sunsets, and of course we saw the famous pancake rocks.
These pictures are taken of Cape Foulwind.
Sun rays going through cloud cover during sunset = cool.
It’s no Cape Reinga sign… but we’ll take what we can get. So you know exactly where we are.
These are the mountains popping out above the cloud line. It was a pretty spectacular sight!
These flowers reminded Andre’a of bells.
We found this Weka bird and her babies…. they are not the sharpest birds in NZ. But hey, we got a cool shot of it anyways. They are one of NZ’s many flightless birds.
This is called a ”koru”. It is how the ferns and just about every kind of plant life grow down here. The Koru symbol represents new life.
Here are the pancake rocks. The pancake rocks are cool because no one knows how they are formed. They defy all the laws and rules of science… but I know how they were formed, but you cant tell anyone. God told them to grow like that, so they did.
by Colin Feldhaus
Well, here are the limestone arches at Karamea. These things were so huge it was difficult to photograph them… it was like photographing a skyscraper from 3 inches away…. it is just not going to happen. It happened. These things were simply amazing. These arches were made by a river going through a mountain… naturally. The river just decided that through a mountain was its best way to go.
This first picture was of the biggest arch. It measures approximately 200 meters long by 50 meters wide by 45 meters tall. That is huge!! You could almost fit 2 football fields inside these arches.
This was taken outside the arch, you can see the river at the bottom and the river going right through this huge hill.
Same angle just a little further back….
Here was the other limestone arch that we saw. This one was not nearly as big, but it had some caves on the side of it that you can go in.
by Colin Feldhaus
Here are a couple of more pictures we took along the way to Karamea to see the great arches. And I mean they are great. You will see those pictures in the next blog…. so check back soon. While we were driving…
Lots of cool stuff to photograph here in New Zealand.
I liked this little stream leading up to the Arches. I would use the word ”tranquil” to describe this stream.
And this is the river that the stream lead too. I love the color of this water, it is so full of tannin. It reminds me of iced tea. Oh, how i miss a good glass of west Texas iced tea. The tannin comes from the roots of the trees that run along the rivers. Just looking at this picture makes me thirsty.
by colin feldhaus
When we were driving some of the roads in New Zealand, I could not resist pulling over and grabbing a couple of photographs. The light was so fascinating. It was cloudy out with little patches of sunlight peeking through. Have a look. It seems very mysterious to me.
I love the lone bird in this picture.
Colin Feldhaus
Andre’a and I (colin) took a cool trip up to Lake Brunner, but this first picture is from our kayaking trip looking at the southern Alps. The very farthest mountain point to the right is Mt. Cook – the tallest mountain in New Zealand.
Lake Brunner is a couple hours north of Okarito, so we decided to check it out on one of our days off. We had to head up to Greymouth anyways to get some food (our fridge was a little bare)… so Lake Brunner was just a small detour away. The trip was mostly good…. except, we did a little extra driving than necessary. First we went to Greymouth to get some dry good groceries, then we went to Lake Brunner and checked it out a little bit. We were going hang out at the lake for a bit and go back to Hokitika (30 minutes closer and right in the path home) and pick up the rest of the food there. Well we took a little detour, drove on some dirt roads, and were almost lost. It was kinda funny because I always say that Andre’a is never going to learn how to read a map, (but I – Andre’a – have!!) and I am never going to not get mad at her for not being able to read a map. We came to an intersection and I asked my navigator (Andre’a) what way to go and she very confidently says to go right… well that did not feel right in my gut, but she persuaded me and said she finally learned how to read a map. A little while down the road turns into dirt and we were supposed to be on a main highway…. Luckily this road eventually makes its way back to the main highway. But it just goes to show you that you can’t teach an old dog new tricks. Then we head to Hokitika, thinking that the New World (the grocery store that is in hokitika and greymouth) will be open, because the receipt from Greymouth store says that it will. Well, the store in Hoki closes one hour before the Greymouth store does, so we just missed it. Then we had to travel back to Greymouth, get the rest of the food and head home. By the time we left Greymouth it was 9:30pm and Okarito is 2 hrs away. We counted the cars that we saw on the way home and the grand total was 11 cars in 2 hrs. amazing… That is actually alot of people on the roads here in the Westcoast. Moral of the story…. Buy an iphone with GPS on it so you’ll know where you are and when the grocery store closes!!
pulled over for a picture and andrea decided to do her cow call and look what happened….
Look, there still comin’.
These last few are in Okarito..
by colin feldhaus
Andre’a and I are really excited about our days off this week. The weather is… well lets say… not rainy. The rain tends to go in weekly cycles that have been happening to hit on our days off, but not this week. We are going to head north to the pancake rocks…. and that is really all I know for now. they look really cool.
here are some shots I took a couple weeks ago at last light around town.
I just loved how the sunlight just kissed the wharf. it was really nice.
By Colin Feldhaus
Andre’a and I had the opportunity to go kayaking in the Okarito lagoon. The day we went was absolutely beautiful. It was a perfect day. The water was pretty chilly but well worth it.
Andre’a took this awesome picture of the white heron in the lagoon. They are pretty rare birds but we have seen a bunch of them around here.
We had a low water crossing… guess who got to get out of the kayak…
and guess who did not….
by Colin Feldhaus
