When I left off, we were at Punakaiki Rocks. After that we got back in our camper van and headed toward the town of Greymouth. We stopped at a place called Bullers Gorge and walked on a swing bridge. The area had a whole lot of BEES!* After the swing bridge,we did a hike and saw a native Zealand bird called a weka. We thought it was a kiwi but then we saw a sign and realized kiwi only come out at night. We got to Greymouth in the late afternoon and went to the nearest beach which was right next to our camp site. I built a teepee made out of sticks with my brother and we looked for jade, a sacred stone that you can actually find on the beach.
In the morning, we had breakfast in the camper van and headed to the Franz Josef glacier. The person who discovered it is named Julius Von Haast but he named it after an emperor, Franz Josef 1 of Austria.
We got within 200 meters of the glacier, but chunks of ice fall daily so its not safe to get too close.
The glacier is 12 km(7.5 miles) long and is unique because its base is only 300 meters above sea level. The glacier has about 250,000 visitors a year!
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| Building teepee at Greymouth Beach |
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| Here's a Weka |
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| Getting ready to walk to the glacier |
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| Here's the glacier...watch out for falling rocks and ice! |
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| Hiking back down |
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| Doing a flip on the trampoline at the Franz Josef camp site... |
*see post "bees" coming soon
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