We woke up a little bit late; the Airbnb was so comfortable it was hard to drag ourselves out of bed. We had a date to meet my parents in Wanaka for lunch, which was approximately 2 hours by driving, but there were a couple of things we wanted to stop and see on the road way.

Our first stop of the morning was Jackson’s Bay. It was a bit out of our way, but Warrick, the Airbnb host had said it was not to be missed to we went. The whole shoreline for the last couple of kilometers was Reserved for Penguins, but we didn’t see any. We stopped to have a look, it was a very moody and gorgeous little spot. Then we hit the road.

The next stop on the way was the blue pools. This was another super blue section of river with a swing bridge over it. It was very lovely, but by this point in the trip, we had had some blue overload and we were not super impressed.

We continued on to Wanaka. After a little bit of miscommunication, we managed to meet up with my parents and all stroll along the lake together towards the Wanaka tree. It was a pleasant day, so the walk was nice. After getting our photos, we sat down for lunch at a restaurant across the lake. It was a nice little lunch, and it was nice to see my parents.

After lunch, we drove onto Queenstown. We drove over the Cadrona road, which was lovely and offered sweeping vistas. Then we arrived in Queenstown in time for Chinese New Year. To celebrate, we took a walk around the town and then ate dumplings for dinner. We were surprisingly pooped, so we fell asleep quite early.

We woke up leisurely. We had no definitive appointments, do we took our time. After enjoying the beach and packing up, we head out for the pancake rocks. The views along the coast were magnificent! I would have loved to spend the whole day enjoying this section of the country!

The pancake rocks were even neater than I expected. They created a striking feature along the ocean, and they left me interested to know how they came to be formed like that, but I guess that is still a mystery. After walking the loop, we got back in the car to continue on.

Our next stop was the Hokitika gorge. I had heard about this place on a list of best swing bridges in New Zealand. This one did not disappoint. It was suspended over a bright blue canyon. Quite striking! While we were sitting under the bridge, some guy jumped off the bridge into the water. Some people had been trying to talk him out of it, but after he did it he said it was refreshing. I think the water would be too cold for me!

We head into the town of Hokitika. We wanted to get our bearings, and that was the town where the audio book we were listening to was taking place. After a coffee break, we head to Franz Joseph. It was raining when we got there. We didn’t let that stop us from walking through the valley. While we were walking the sky cleared up and gave us a superb view of the glacier and valley.

After our hike, we still had a bit of a drive to get to our Airbnb in Haast. We made a brief stop at a mount Cook viewing area and then continued to Haast. We stopped for dinner at Hard Antler and then found our Airbnb. It was a lovely little house on the ocean. It did not take us long to hit the hay.

We woke up at 6 to catch the sunrise, and boy, what a sunrise it was! The whole sky lit up like fire and the red clouds were so bright they reflected off the water. It was absolutely stunning. After taking some photos, we packed up our kayak and head out for an early start. We had a pretty far distance to cover.

Our first stop was at a beach called the Anchorage. It was quite crowded with a lot of boats parked out front. But it was nice. We refilled our water and then continued. Next we kayaked past Adele Island. We saw quite a few seals hanging out here. We wanted to stop on the beach at Adele Island, but seemingly it was not present at high tide.

We continued to Appletree beach, which was nice, but crowded. This is where I took a small nap. After that we paddled back to Marahau. It was low tide, so the tractors were pulling boats all the way to a buoy in the water. We returned our gear and then began our 4 hour drive to Punakaiki.

The drive was lovely. The most beautiful spots were next to the Buller River and then along the coast near Punakaiki. We stopped in Westport for groceries, gas and dinner. We ate at PortSide Restaurant, where we had some green mussels. We made the drive to our Airbnb with the last few minutes of daylight. The Airbnb was just a shack on the beach with no internet and no electricity and an outhouse, but it was in a beautiful location. The owner, Blaze came by to orient us, then he helped us start a bonfire. We watched the stars while letting the fire burn out, and then went to bed.

We woke up early to make it to Marahau by 8:30 for our kayaking trip. We got there about 30 minutes early, so I was able to have a coffee. After that the guy at the kayak place gave us a brief safety lesson. Then we had to wait a bit until the water taxi would take us to our starting point.

While we were waiting, we got into a discussion with the two other groups in our water taxi. They were both traveling a lot longer than us, and the discussion turned to the topic of Chinese tourists. The conversation became quite uncomfortable when the British guy started shouting in fake Chinese. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Finally, the water taxi showed up. It was being pulled by a tractor. We got in the boat, then we were put in the water. The taxi ride lasted about 20 minutes and then we got dropped on this long golden beach. We loaded up our kayak and headed out. We started by heading north, but the winds were strong so we turned around and headed to a little island. We saw one seal on the island. Next we headed further south to another large beach. Here we pulled ashore and went for a swim then took a nap in the sun. It was very relaxing.

We made our way to our campsite at Mosquito Bay. It was a lovely little site with gorgeous views. It is only accessible for not so it was not as crowded as some of the other sites. We picked our campsite and then realize we had forgotten our pot so we had to ask a neighbor camper to use theirs.

After dinner we were exhausted, so we head to the tent and went to sleep.