long post about the last few days...

i saw a beached whale. we went back up the golden bay coast to farewell spit on friday and because of lack of time skipped our return trip to the beach you have to hike to and instead did another hike out to a different beach (not as wild but still lovely - no seals though). we "improvised" our way back to the carpark (of course jess was loving it and i was so worried we were lost) and saw a bull sperm whale that had beached itself a couple of days previously and died on the beach. it was sort of sad but the DOC (Department of Conservation) officers that were there said it was an old whale that had likely done it on purpose to die. t'was his time i suppose. when we first came around the corner that let it be in our sight i thought it might still be alive and we took off running the 3/4 kilometre or so to get to it. we knew we had a 6 hour drive with no stops to get to Punakaiki and we had to be there by 9 to get our room and if we were late he'd still charge us even though we'd be sleeping in the car. and we were already running behind but the thought of participating in a whale rescue was more than i could bear. so off we ran. we got such interesting information about whale rescues from the DOC guy (because of the length of the sand spit in that area it does happen on occasion). he even said that they once managed to rescue 100 pilot whales that beached themselves a couple of years ago. thousands of volunteers came out to help. so cool.

anyway, we now had 5 hours and 45 minutes to make a 6 hour drive (and that's 6 hours with no stops - our stops don't tend to be quick). i will not tell you how we did it on those windy roads, only that we did it and got to watch the sun set from about 20 feet in front of our hostel. it was a great day because we really packed in the absolute max of what we could do.

saturday (yesterday) we woke up early to get to the blowholes at the pancake rocks that were about a 10 minute walk from the hostel (although i'm embarassed to admit that we drove - we were scared we'd miss it). these funny looking layered rocks, thus the name pancake, have holes where the water bursts forth at high tide. there are pictures of them all over NZ. while it was not quite as dramatic as the pictures, it was pretty cool. after that we drove to westport, about an hour north (stopped to do a quick 30 minute hike) to get gas, batteries and go for lunch. we then went to a seal colony so as to ensure that we would see them. we hit the pay dirt and stood and watched them for about an hour. we were fairly far away but it was still pretty neat to see, especially since there are baby seals right now. we have another hope of seeing them up close when we travel back to the north island up the east coast past christchurch. after our seal watching we returned to punakaiki to do a 3 hour river walk that included a river crossing at the end. i was pretty nervous, having never done one, and had my waterproof bag for my camera, extra shoes to change into so i wouldn't have to walk in my hikers and warm clothes in case i fell in and had to warm up after. i'd also let someone at the hostel know where were going in case we didn't come back. so picture me, all prepared for the worst, at the side of this river getting ready to cross. jess went first and we decided I would take a picture of her. she seemed to do it with no problem (but i was still a little nervous). by the time i sat down, put my camera into my waterproof bag, took off my hikers and switched to sandals she had crossed back over and back again. so, a little red faced, i crossed my first river (without a bridge). we got back to the hostel, ate dinner and crashed.

this morning (sunday) we arose early and were on the road by 7:15. our goal - queenstown. that is about a 10 hour drive without stopping. in new zealand, i think they consider us a bit crazy for even considering it (but we are canadian girls - we know driving). it was a really nice drive actually. we made several stops. the first was in hokitika to look for jade. then we stopped in fox glacier to meet up with our dutch friends for lunch (which was so fun). we visited the information center in haast (which is an area we really really wish we could have spent some time in) and did a bunch of short walks as we drove through haast pass. stopped for dinner in wanuka and made it to queenstown around 9.

tomorrow is preparation day. we need to buy all of our food for our three day Routeburn Track. exciting.